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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/28015842">'tis the damn season</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/powerandpathos/pseuds/powerandpathos'>powerandpathos</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>19天 - Old先 | 19 Days - Old Xian</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alcohol, Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Christmas, Christmas Tree, Drug Use, Dublin (City), Gift Fic, Guan Shan works on a Christmas tree farm, Illustrations, Ireland, M/M, Smoking, inspired by Normal People</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>In-Progress</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-12-11</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-05-08</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-10 21:20:47</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Mature</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>2</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>18,370</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/28015842</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/powerandpathos/pseuds/powerandpathos</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>There aren’t many Chinese people in Ireland; a few thousand in Dublin at most. Even in China, Guan Shan knows the man would stand out like someone had just tilted a spotlight over his frame. Centre stage, dark eyes set to glisten. He’s cut from a different cloth than the rest of them.</p><p>Guan Shan’s never had to speak to him before; it’s always been the other lads. Being alone with him is a different experience entirely, something that prods at the wiring in his brain and makes his face feel hot. Guan Shan doesn’t know what to say to people at the best of times. For some reason the man renders him half-mute.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>He Tian/Mo Guanshan (19 Days), Jian Yi/Zhan Zhengxi (19 Days), Past Mo Guanshan/She Li (19 Days)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>27</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>147</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. Chapter 1</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><ul class="associations">
      <li>For <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/Plumb19/gifts">Plumb19</a>.</li>



    </ul><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>You should all know that this fic stemmed from my desire to write about a first-generation Irish!Guan Shan who says 'grand'. That's literally it. (Oh and my love of the novel/TV show, <i>Normal People</i>.) This fic is incredbily indulgent and is for my friend Emma, who has been a support this year both within the writing sphere and to me as a friend when life hasn't been all that great. Thank you, Emma. All errors are my own, and I wish you all a very Happy Holiday! The title of this fic couldn't have come at a better time: it is of the new song of the same name from Taylor Swift's album <i>Evermore</i>.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <strong>Glossary</strong>
</p><p>CGTN - China Global Television Network</p><p>Dunnes - a popular supermarket in Ireland</p><p>Gardaí or Guard - <em>‘Garda Síochána na hÉireann’</em>, Guardians of the Police of Ireland, the Irish police force</p><p><em>Nollaig Shona </em>- Merry Christmas in Gaelic</p><p>Revenue - ‘Revenue Commissioners’, the Republic of Ireland taxation office for income and revenue</p><p><em>Shèngdàn jié kuàilè</em> - Merry Christmas in Mandarin</p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p>It’s a damp night in the forest; the copse of trees offers a decent enough awning from the drizzle, which promises to turn into a heavy downpour later tonight. By morning, Dublin’s streets will have frozen over and its green parks will have transformed into a playground of frost and sodden footprints and roads covered in grit.</p><p>Guan Shan rubs his eyes. Morning feels a way off; he’s got an hour left of his shift and he’s working the late one tonight. A few customers have come and gone, dribs and drabs of couples and single parents with children in tow.</p><p>It's too late for the hordes of large families in their SUVs and hatchbacks, who leave with the crowns of their Christmas trees poking out an open car boot tied down with rope while they take the R115 back into town. Nah, those ones will come tomorrow morning, bright and early.</p><p>Guan Shan can’t wait.</p><p>‘This one?’</p><p>‘I like this one better. It’s taller.’</p><p>‘This one’s fatter. It’s got more branches. We don’t want a skinny tree now.’</p><p>Dry laughter. ‘’Course. No one wants a skinny Christmas tree.’</p><p>The couple’s chatter continues for a few more minutes; no one else arrives. Guan Shan wishes they’d just choose a fucking tree. Then the forest will be his and he can enjoy the last hour of silence and add a smidge of whiskey to his coffee.</p><p>‘What about this one?’</p><p>There’s movement, woodchip and dead pine needles snapping under foot, and then incredulous laughter.</p><p>‘I’m not paying fifty fucking euros for a Christmas tree, love.’</p><p>Guan Shan gets to his feet, puts his thermos mug in the netted cup holder of his camping chair. He clears his throat, approaches the couple.</p><p>‘D’ye need a hand at all?’</p><p>The girl looks over at him; the fella gives him a long look. Both seem to have just noticed him there. Guan Shan shoves his gloved hands into his pockets and rocks back on his feet. He can stand here all night.</p><p>The guy suddenly smiles. ‘Aw, pick one for us, mate, would you? Go on.’</p><p>His girlfriend turns on him. <em>‘Jamie—’</em></p><p>‘The lad knows what he’s doing, Soph. Better than us. Least we won’t blame each other if we hate it. Can always bring it back—’</p><p>‘We don’t do refunds,’ Guan Shan says tersely.</p><p>He jerks a thumb behind him towards the softly-lit cabin, which is locked up now for the night, and has a sign sitting in the artificially frosted window that reads, ‘NO REFUNDS’.</p><p>There’s a pause, then Jamie says, ‘Ah, right. This isn’t Dunnes’, is it now.’ He laughs for a few seconds. ‘Could’ve chopped down a tree from any fucking forest, couldn’t I?’</p><p>Guan Shan admires his cheeriness as much as he hates it. He paces around the couple who are dressed like Trinity students poorly prepared for winter: thin coats, no gloves, and pairs of matching Le Chameau wellies they would’ve got in the sale. Jamie strikes him as the type to typically wear chinos and boat shoes with no socks. Guan Shan knows his type.</p><p>Guan Shan inspects the sparse rows of Christmas trees around them, slim pickings for the rest of the evening before new ones get cut for the morning. He eyes a blue sticker around the crown of one tree, considers the boughs of needles, the size of the trunk.</p><p>‘Have ye got a house or a flat?’ he asks, thinking.</p><p>‘A flat,’ Sophie pipes up. ‘Our first place together. We’re on the same Master’s course at Trinners. It’s perfect, truth be told.’</p><p>Guan Shan nods. ‘Grand.’ He drags the tree towards him. ‘You’ll want this one,’ he tells them. ‘Thirty euros for five foot. Not too heavy up the stairs. It’s got a good set of needles that won’t start sheddin’ for a while. Remember it’ll need a litre of water a day or it’ll start dyin’ on ye.’</p><p>‘Great help. Thanks a million,’ says Jamie, handing over the cash.</p><p>Guan Shan nods. He carries the tree himself, hoisting it under his arm and dragging it through the net funnel so the boughs are drawn up neatly and won’t make too much of a mess in the back of Sophie’s black coupé.</p><p>She rushes to put the back seats down, flattens out an old bed sheet across the upholstery, and beeps her car horn once they’re safely ensconced in the heated car and driving their way carefully through the dark to the gated entrance of the Christmas tree farm.</p><p>Eventually: silence.</p><p>Guan Shan blows out air through his cheeks and plonks himself back down in the camping chair, which seems permanently indented with the shape of his arse. If he tilts his head back, he can feel the wet brush of drizzle on his cheeks. Some nights, it’s cold and clear enough to see a thick landscape of stars right above him. Those are the best nights, and he has his neck craned back for long enough that when he eventually stands his shoulders are sore and a wave of vertigo rushes over him.</p><p>It happens tonight, too. It’s three weeks ‘til Christmas and not a single car shows up for another forty minutes, leaving Guan Shan with ample views of a black sky thick with rain cloud. Guan Shan’s swaying unsteadily on his feet, ready to pack up his chair and thermos into the boot of his weary yellow Honda when a set of headlights appear up the road.</p><p>‘Oh, you bastard,’ Guan Shan mutters, squinting against the headlights. Heavy tyres tread up the pathway, and the engine is soundless. Electric? Guan Shan isn’t impressed. By now he should be switching off the electric lamps that line the rows of trees, sliding the last of the petty cash beneath the cabin’s door, making his way to the front gate, and locking up.</p><p>He folds his arms over his chest and waits while the Ford Mustang rolls to a stop. The windshield is tinted black, the driver invisible, and Guan Shan frowns at the personalised number plate.</p><p>It’s familiar, somehow. He’s seen it before, hasn’t he?</p><p>It’s suddenly so quiet—quieter even than when he was on his own—and Guan Shan’s breathing is too loud.</p><p>The door opens, and the driver steps out.</p><p><em>It’s him, </em>Guan Shan thinks.</p><p>‘Evening,’ says the man.</p><p>Guan Shan jerks his chin. ‘What’s the craic?’</p><p>‘Obviously very little. Late night Christmas tree shopping spree. You’re still open, aren’t you?’</p><p><em>‘</em>Closin’ soon,’ says Guan Shan, sweeping a hand. ‘Help yourself.’</p><p>The man smirks, inclines his head, makes a gesture as if tipping a tophat that he must think is fucking hilarious—and Guan Shan steps back and lets him roam. He tries to pinpoint the man’s accent. Dubliner, certainly. But there’s something else in there, too. An Englishness that flattens out some of his vowels. Maybe some Mandarin, too? It’s intriguing. Guan Shan doesn’t like it.</p><p>He doesn’t sit; his chair is packed up in his car. Instead he stands awkwardly to one side and watches. The man’s dressed as richly as Guan Shan remembers. He’s worked four Christmases at the farm and seen the man every year. According to the other lads, he turns up once a year every year—first with his older brother and mother—a dark-eyed beauty with festive red lipstick and expensive clothes—then only his brother—a huge, intimidating man of few words. Now he comes on his own.</p><p>There aren’t many Chinese people in Ireland; a few thousand in Dublin at most. Even in China, Guan Shan knows the man would stand out like someone had just tilted a spotlight over his frame. Centre stage, dark eyes set to glisten. He’s cut from a different cloth than the rest of them.</p><p>Guan Shan’s never had to speak to him before; it’s always been the other lads. Being alone with him is a different experience entirely, something that prods at the wiring in his brain and makes his face feel hot. Guan Shan doesn’t know what to say to people at the best of times. For some reason the man renders him half-mute.</p><p>‘This one looks good,’ the man says from one of the back rows of trees, the top of his dark head just visible. He’s taller than Guan Shan had ever really realised. ‘What do you think?’</p><p>Guan Shan moves over, assesses the tree. It’s a twelve-footer. The man is looking at him with an unnameable expression. Curiosity? Amusement? Does he have even the remotest fucking interest in Guan Shan’s opinon? What kind of profound response can Guan Shan give except—</p><p>‘It’s a big one, sure.’</p><p>The man’s eyes widen with his mouth, which breaks out into a full-blown grin. Guan Shan wants to leave. He puts a hand on the back of his neck, feeling hot.</p><p>‘It is, isn’t it,’ says the man. ‘Expensive, too.’</p><p>Guan Shan looks at his car, wonders if he could make a run for it.</p><p> </p><p>
  
</p><p>beautiful art by emma on <a href="http://plumb19.tumblr.com/">tumblr</a> &amp; <a href="https://www.instagram.com/plm19draws/">instagram</a></p><p> </p><p> </p><p>‘Don’t you, like, pay in advance, usually?’ he asks. ‘Thought you called up the farm to pick one for you.’</p><p>‘That’s a very good memory you’ve got yourself there.’</p><p><em>Shit. </em>He’s gone and done it now.</p><p>Guan Shan shrugs. ‘There’s a lot of white around these parts. You’re a familiar face.’</p><p>‘Likewise.’</p><p>Guan Shan swallows. ‘So, er, you didn’t pre-order?’</p><p>‘Not this time. I’ve had a lot of things on my mind. Truth be told, I nearly forgot to pick one up.’</p><p>‘Still three weeks ‘til Christmas,’ Guan Shan points out. ‘Think you would’ve done alright if you remembered next week.’</p><p>‘I’ve come the same day every year. Twenty-eighth.’ His eyes crinkle when he smiles, as if at some inward joke. ‘Family tradition.’</p><p>Guan Shan blinks. Same day? He would’ve noticed that in the books, wouldn’t he? Probably not. He hasn’t been that curious—or observant. They get hundreds of orders a year, hundreds more that show up and pick their own. Guan Shan doesn’t even remember the man’s name. By the time he’s ever thought to ask, the other lads have been too busy and Guan Shan will have forgotten about him for another year.</p><p>‘Tian,’ says the man. ‘We should have an account under He, but I’ve got cash on me if you need.’</p><p>Guan Shan shakes his head. He hasn’t been listening.</p><p>‘Gimme a sec,’ he says, pulling out his phone. He scrolls through the email his boss sent him with a list of client accounts that can be billed the next morning. He hits the H’s and stops.</p><p>‘He Tian,’ he murmurs, pressing his thumb too hard against the glass screen. ‘Yeah, got it right here. I’ll make a note for eighty euros—you’ll get yourself a receipt tomorrow.’</p><p>‘Appreciated,’ says He Tian, who makes no comment on the price of a thing that will slowly start to die over the winter in whatever immaculate room He Tian must stand the thing in.</p><p>‘Do you need me to net your tree?’</p><p>He Tian’s gaze sharpens, delighted. ‘Well, if you’re offering.’</p><p>Guan Shan’s cheeks burn, and he crouches down to lift the tree from the middle of the trunk with a muttered warning for He Tian to stand back.</p><p>‘You need a hand with that one?’</p><p>‘I’ve got it, thanks,’ Guan Shan grunts.</p><p>‘Sure on that?’</p><p>‘Pretty sure, thanks.’</p><p>There’s sweat on his brow by the time he’s grappled the tree over to the netting funnel, and he can feel He Tian’s darkly amused gaze as he ties off the net with a practiced flourish and carries it over to He Tian’s car. He Tian opens the boot for him, and the smell of fresh upholstery hits Guan Shan’s nostrils, synthetics stinging the back of his throat.</p><p>‘You buy this straight off the factory line or what?’ he asks.</p><p>‘It is new,’ He Tian allows, but adds nothing more. He puts the seats down, isn’t precious about getting pine needles in the footwell or mud on the seats, which Guan Shan secretly admires a bit. The car isn’t big; the tree is bigger. Guan Shan straightens and considers the situation with a thoughtful look.</p><p>‘You got yourself some rope?’ he asks. ‘Could put it on the roof.’</p><p>He Tian considers the situation, too, and says, ‘I have not.’</p><p>‘Might be a bit of an issue.’</p><p>‘Hm,’ says He Tian. ‘I don’t live in town—I can manage with the trunk tucked under my arm for security.’</p><p>Guan Shan raises his eyebrows. ‘You’ve got five feet of Christmas tree hangin’ out your boot.’</p><p>‘That does appear to be the case, yes.’ He Tian runs a gloved hand along his sharp jawline in contemplation, then shrugs. ‘Not much we can do about it, is there? I’ll drive slow.’</p><p>‘Put your hazards on,’ says Guan Shan.</p><p>‘That too, thank you.’</p><p>Guan Shan sighs. He gives the tree another reluctant look. ‘I’d offer to take it to yours but I’ve gotta get home.’</p><p>‘No trouble,’ says He Tian. He winks. ‘You’ve been plenty helpful.’</p><p>Guan Shan scowls. He doesn’t know what to make of that—or the wink. It leaves him feeling strange and slightly confused. Is He Tian laughing at him? Is Guan Shan supposed to laugh <em>with </em>him? He shifts uncomfortably.</p><p>‘Night, then,’ he says. ‘<em>Nollaig Shona.’</em></p><p>He Tian grins and lowers the boot of his car so the edge just rests against the protruding tree trunk.</p><p>‘<em>Shèngdàn jié kuàilè</em>, Mo Guan Shan.’</p><p> </p><p>///</p><p> </p><p>Guan Shan drives to his flat that night thinking not of how He Tian could’ve possibly known his name, but what it was like to hear Mandarin on the tongue of someone that wasn’t his mother or the news presenter on CGTN. It’s outlandish, somehow. Both entirely foreign and intimately familiar, as if He Tian has stolen the words and put them together with a new cadence and baritone that Guan Shan thinks is fundamentally un-fucking-fair.</p><p>It’s two degrees outside but he drives back to town with the windows down and cold air biting against his flushed cheeks. By the time he parks up outside his apartment, his fingers have gone white from the cold and he can’t feel his lips. He feels better.</p><p>He lives in a block of flats that have been recently renovated to fix the mould and sewage problems from the fifties, paying more than he should for a one bed place where he takes the peeling faux-leather sofa and She Li gets the bedroom. He’s got it better than some, he knows—he’s got a sofa, at least—but he likes to think it could still be better. It was easier when he lived with his ma; at least then he knew where he stood.</p><p>For some reason, he thinks suddenly of the kind of place where He Tian must live. Some penthouse on the bay or by the docks, maybe a centuries-old place outside the Medieval Quarter. Guan Shan’s imagination falters. <em>I don’t live in town, </em>He Tian had said. Not for the first time, Guan Shan wonders what He Tian and his family are doing in Dublin.</p><p>A light flickers in the stairwell as Guan Shan climbs his way up to the third floor; the door’s unlocked when he pushes it open and he pauses briefly in the threshold. He can see a light on through the sliver of the open door. The smell of weed is nauseating. He swallows the lump in his throat and shoves the door open, one fell swoop.</p><p>She Li looks up from the sofa. He has his boots kicked up on the glass coffee table and the TV is set to mute. Guan Shan can see the specs of white powder on the glass from the doorway, along with the half-empty bottle of Jameson. How much drink has he got in him? Guan Shan wonders, tossing his keys in the bowl on the kitchen counter top to his right. He starts to tug his jacket off.</p><p>‘Thought you said you’d be home before nine,’ says She Li.</p><p>‘Thought I asked you not to take that stuff around me,’ Guan Shan retorts, making his way to the fridge and staring into its unpromising contents. Behind him, he hears the leather creak as She Li shifts.</p><p>‘That’s the thing, Mo Guan Shan. You weren’t around. The rule doesn’t apply then, does it.’</p><p>‘Does it?’ Guan Shan mutters, half to himself, plucking a can of beer from the side of the fridge door.</p><p>‘What was that?’</p><p>Guan Shan kicks the fridge shut. He turns around and pulls the metal tab on the can. He takes a sip, wipes his mouth.</p><p>‘I asked if you could clean it up.’</p><p>She Li smiles thinly. His eyes are gone. ‘Sure,’ he says. ‘I can do that.’</p><p>He reaches for a rolled-up piece of paper and puts a finger to one nostril. Guan Shan looks away and cringes at the smell of sniffing, of paper screeching against the glass table. He hears She Li coughing, catches She Li wiping his nose in the cuff of his long-sleeved black shirt.</p><p>‘You can look now, princess.’</p><p>Guan Shan grunts. ‘You’re done, are you?’ he asks. ‘I’m shattered. I want to sleep.’</p><p>‘It’s Friday night. You’re not coming out for one? Just up the road? Come on.’</p><p>‘I’ve got work in the mornin’. Not up for getting locked tonight.’</p><p>‘You’re going to let me get fucked up on my own? Not very friendly.’</p><p>‘You manage well enough on your own,’ Guan Shan replies tersely.</p><p>‘You’re a fucking geebag,’ She Li throws back, getting to his feet. He runs a hand through his silvery hair, sleek enough that his rings never get caught in the strands. ‘You can take my bed, if you want. Warm it up for when I get back.’</p><p>Guan Shan shakes his head, watching She Li stride around the small apartment. There’s a small table and two chairs against the window overlooking the complex’s concrete courtyard, and She Li swipes a leather jacket from the back of a chair and tugs it on.</p><p>Guan Shan doesn’t get it. She Li has a good job in IT, spends too much of his wage on coke, but could still earn a nice place of his own by the river. Instead, he’s in a rundown housing complex making Guan Shan crash on his sofa and making his life as discomfiting as it can get. It makes Guan Shan’s skin crawl. He finishes the rest of his beer in three big gulps, then crushes the can and throws it in a plastic box on the floor for recycling.</p><p>‘I don’t do that anymore,’ he says.</p><p>She Li shrugs at Guan Shan as he heads towards the door. ‘You say <em>no</em>, I hear <em>one day.</em>’</p><p>Guan Shan steps to one side, letting him pass. ‘Have a good fuckin’ night, She Li.’</p><p>She Li stops just beside him, leaning close. He inhales like he’s sniffing another line, then rolls his neck, shakes his limbs about as if running with the jolt of the high.</p><p>‘Fresh pine,’ he murmurs. ‘So tempting.’</p><p>Guan Shan grits his teeth. ‘<em>Good night, She Li.’</em></p><p>The door rattles when it slams shut, and Jenny Walsh’s Jack Russell barks noisily from down the hall. It’s settled by the time Guan Shan’s showered in the small shared bathroom and made up the sofa, sheets tucked down the sides, pillows plumped. The sofa isn’t not long enough, leaving him with a permanently stiff neck and an ache in his lower back each morning, but he tells himself it’s temporary.</p><p>Even when Jian Yi and Zhengxi offer him their substantially more comfortable sofa bed, that’s what he tells them. Temporary. He’s just riding it out until he’s got himself sorted. There’s no definitive timescale on being explicitly ‘sorted’, but it has to happen at some point. As it is, he’d rather a cramped spot on She Li’s sofa and a few hours of solitude while She Li’s on the piss than to lie awake to the sounds of Jian Yi and Zhengxi fucking every night.</p><p>He’s tried a stint at their gaff before, not being particularly gone on the idea to begin with, then packed up his bags after the third sleepless night, left a loaf of soda bread on the side as a thank you, and dragged his way back to She Li’s apartment.</p><p>‘Took you long enough,’ She Li had said, leaning on the doorway.</p><p>Guan Shan sighs, considering a second beer. Instead, he takes a hot shower, gets the dirt out from beneath his nails. He’s hungry but can’t be fucked to cook anything at this time of night, and gives in to ordering Uber Eats. He pads around the apartment while putting in an order for Lebanese—hummus, baba ganoush, a few falafel and fresh pita—and grabs his wallet from the kitchen counter.</p><p>He pauses, sliding out his debit card from his wallet, then stops.</p><p>The bowl by the counter is empty.</p><p>‘No fuckin’ way,’ he mutters.</p><p>His car keys have gone.</p><p>‘Fuck!’</p><p>He fumbles with his phone, thumbs clumsily swiping through the screen. He punches in She Li’s name and mashes his phone against his cheek. His heart hammers against his ribcage. His leg shakes while the dial tone rings.</p><p>And rings.</p><p>The phone connects.</p><p>‘You took my fuckin’ car, you fuck!’</p><p>‘You’ll have it back by morning.’</p><p>‘You have your own fuckin’ car!’ Guan Shan fumes. He can hear the screech of tyres, of car horns blaring. His fingers are white-knuckled around the phone. ‘You’re fucked!’</p><p>‘You can owe me your car once in a while. I think it’s the least you can do, don’t you?’</p><p>Guan Shan closes his eyes. <em>Jesus fucking Christ, </em>he thinks.</p><p>His voice tremors. ‘You said you were goin’ down the road.’</p><p>‘Changed my mind.’</p><p>‘You can’t just take people’s things without askin’ anythin’ of them in the first place! I need my car for work tomorrow—’</p><p>‘And I said you’ll get it.’</p><p>He stumbles around, looking for a pair of socks, his jacket, his shoes. ‘Where the fuck are you? I’m comin’ to get it.’</p><p>‘Somewhere in town.’</p><p>‘She Li—’</p><p>‘God, you’re boring—’</p><p>‘Don’t you fuckin’ <em>dare </em>hang up on—’</p><p>He breaks off.</p><p>There’s a devastating cracking sound on the other end of the line. Tyres screech; metal crumples. Guan Shan hears glass shattering, a car horn being pressed and held, long and unending. Distantly, someone is shouting. He knows it must have happened very quickly, but the sound of it is dragged out into an eternity. Guan Shan thinks he’s going to be sick.</p><p>He grips the edge of the counter.</p><p>‘She Li? <em>She Li.’</em></p><p>‘M’alright. Fuck, I’m alright.’</p><p>Guan Shan’s breath shakes. ‘What happened? The car—’</p><p>A door slams, and Guan Shan hears crunching glass, She Li’s heavy breathing. A siren starts to wail. There’s distant conversation, swearing.</p><p>‘She Li? She Li, what the fuck’s goin’ on?’</p><p>The breathing is louder through the speaker, as if She Li’s just brought the phone back to his ear. And then laughter, hoarse and shaken.</p><p>‘You might have to find a different way to get to work tomorrow.’</p><p>Guan Shan’s head hangs; he hangs up.</p><p>His concern dissipates quickly.</p><p>There’s no apology; no remorse, and there never will be. His mind works fast. He’s three weeks from Christmas and there’s no bus out to the farm. The job’s a nixer that he gets paid in cash—he won’t get a wage if he doesn’t show up, and the other lads live out of the city. There’s no chance any of them would make the detour.</p><p>He hasn’t seen the damage on his car, but he doesn’t need to. He’s got a good enough head on his shoulders and a general understanding of how his life plays out to know that when things are bad they’re as bad as they can get. He finds himself sitting on the lino floor of the kitchen and lets his phone clatter to the floor.</p><p>He’s fucked.</p><p> </p><p>///</p><p> </p><p>He gets the 6am bus the next morning to the station where She Li is being held. It’s a forty-minute ride through the city and he’ll have to change twice. He could probably walk there in the same amount of time, but the thought of exerting any particular amount of energy right now gives a thudding pain in the back of his skull. He hasn’t eaten since yesterday lunchtime and his teeth have started to ache.</p><p>He leans his head back against the rattling glass of the bus window bleary with condensation, which makes his teeth rattle in his jaw, and watches car headlights bloom orange like a lit match as they pass in the morning darkness.</p><p>He slept poorly last night and closes his eyes. He isn’t surprised that as soon as he does thoughts of last night rush at him like savage ghosts, furrowing his brow. He sees the photos, the wreck She Li had made of his car, She Li’s head wound, silver hair matted with blood from his head smacking against the wheel. The car isn’t worth the cost of the repairs. She Li wasn’t wearing a seat belt.</p><p>He could’ve died.</p><p>‘You’re going the wrong way to Rockbrook, aren’t you?’</p><p>Guan Shan’s eyes snap open and he lifts his head. Across the aisle, He Tian is watching him thoughtfully. It takes Guan Shan’s mind a few seconds to catch up. He straightens. This can’t be coincidence, can it? He Tian is impeccably well-dressed—a black wool coat over a jumper and dark trousers, leather gloves and a thick grey scarf. Guan Shan can’t picture him in anything less formal.</p><p>‘Hey,’ he says croakily. ‘He Tian, right? How’s the craic?’</p><p>‘Not much. You look like you’ve got death in you.’</p><p>Guan Shan closes his eyes briefly. ‘I feel like I do, that’s for sure.’</p><p>‘Where are you going?’</p><p>Guan Shan knows he could lie right now, spin some simple tale, but for some reason he doesn’t. The bus is empty this time of morning except for the two of them and three girls sitting at the back of the bus who look like they’re just on their way home from a night on the piss.</p><p>‘Police station,’ he says, and then, at He Tian’s look: ‘It’s a long story.’</p><p>‘Quite.’</p><p>Guan Shan considers him. ‘Where’s your fancy car?’</p><p>‘I left it at home,’ says He Tian. ‘I usually get the bus into town on the weekends.’</p><p>‘At six-thirty in the mornin’?’</p><p>‘I like the quiet,’ says He Tian. ‘It feels like the city’s waking up around me.’ He nods his head backwards towards the girls, who are sleeping on each other’s shoulders. He Tian’s smile is indulgent, offered to Guan Shan like he wants to share it. ‘Or just going to bed.’</p><p>‘That’s very fuckin’ profound.’</p><p>He Tian smirks. ‘Where’s your car, then?’</p><p>‘Part of the long story.’</p><p>He Tian glances at his watch. Guan Shan sees a flash of metal, a Rolex insignia. Of course.</p><p>‘I’ve got twenty minutes until my stop,’ he says. ‘I don’t mind listening, if you feel like sharing.’</p><p>Guan Shan chews the inside of his cheek, mulls it over. His eyes dart between He Tian and the digital screen at the front of the bus. He’s got a few stops, too. With a sigh, he tells him.</p><p>He Tian’s expression is a level thing that reveals nothing, stony and lightly humoured. When Guan Shan mentions the ruined car, He Tian’s brow furrows.</p><p>‘So is this She Li your landlord or your friend, then? Boyfriend?’</p><p>‘Fuck, no,’ Guan Shan spits. ‘I mean—’ He Tian’s eyebrow quirks. ‘It’s complicated. We were in school together. He offered me a place to stay when my ma went back home.’</p><p>‘Home?’</p><p>‘Sichuan. My grandmother’s sick, so she’s looking after her. It’s pretty rural—not much in the way of work for a young lad.’</p><p>‘Dublin isn’t home?’ He Tian’s head tilts. ‘You’re first generation, are you?’</p><p>‘I guess. What about you?’</p><p>‘Second. But my family would move back to China a few times a year. Sometimes we lived in London or Hong Kong.’ His smile is mirthless. ‘It was a busy childhood.’</p><p><em>Busy? </em>Guan Shan thinks. <em>Or disruptive?</em></p><p>‘What are you going to do about the farm?’ He Tian asks. ‘There’s no bus out to Rockbrook. Will you get a hire car?’</p><p>Guan Shan spreads his hands. ‘I wasn’t drivin’ the car, was I? Insurance won’t cover it.’</p><p>He Tian nods slowly. ‘And you’re out of work.’</p><p>‘And soon I’ll be out of a place to live. She Li will kick me out if I don’t pay the rent.’</p><p>‘That would be interesting. He wrecked your car, lost you your job for the rest of the month, then kicks you out before Christmas, is it?’</p><p>‘Told you it was complicated.’</p><p>‘That’s a little more than complicated. That’s fucked up, Mo Guan Shan.’</p><p>Guan Shan narrows his eyes. ‘Y’know, you never asked me my name—and I never told you it.’</p><p>‘I heard one of the other lads call your name last year,’ says He Tian smoothly. ‘I have a good memory.’</p><p>The bus rocks as it dips over a pothole, and Guan Shan grabs the seat in front of him for purchase. It could be a lie. It’s probably a lie. But the truth is deceptively simple, and Guan Shan’s been through enough in one night to swallow it.</p><p>‘Alright, then,’ he says.</p><p>He Tian moves the conversation on. ‘So what will happen to this friend of yours? The drunk druggie—’</p><p>‘He’s not like that all the time—’</p><p>‘This She Li?’</p><p>Guan Shan sighs. ‘Fuck knows,’ he mutters. ‘Reckon he’ll get charged by the Gardaí for drivin’ under the influence or some shite.’</p><p>‘Prison, is it?’</p><p>‘He could be so lucky. Knowin’ him, he’ll get a fine and a partial drivin’ ban for a couple months.’</p><p>Guan Shan rubs his face. The thought of it gives him a headache. He hasn’t got a fucking clue what’s going to happen. If She Li was decent, he’d put Guan Shan on his insurance and let him drive his car to work. He isn’t decent, though, and Guan Shan isn’t going to get a bus to the farm and walk an hour just to sell Christmas trees. He’ll find something else—he has to.</p><p>‘What happens when Christmas is over?’ He Tian asks. ‘What kind of work do you have for yourself?’</p><p>‘Odd jobs,’ says Guan Shan, feeling awkward. He Tian’s asking a lot of questions and Guan Shan doesn’t know if the curiosity is genuine or just something to pass the time. He has the sense that He Tian has rather too much money to be interested in a guy like him whose life still isn’t looking up to much. ‘Carpentry. Landscapin’, mostly. Gardens. I’ve got a diploma in horticulture.’</p><p>He Tian’s eyebrows lift. ‘Chinese-Irish Monty Don, are you?’</p><p>Guan Shan snorts. ‘Fuck off.’</p><p>‘Sorry, I don’t mean to mock,’ He Tian chuckles. ‘That’s actually quite impressive, that is.’ And then he pauses strangely, his mouth parted. The look he gives Guan Shan takes on a new breed of intensity. It’s starting to lighten up outside, a dark sky taking on a pink greyness.</p><p>Dublin’s streets are quiet and cold as the bus moves its way through the city, grit crunching beneath the wheels as they roll past the cathedral and St Stephen’s Green, looping around the castle and along the misty banks of the Liffey, which Guan Shan catches glimpses of through the neat lines of lime trees. For a moment, Guan Shan understands what He Tian had meant about roaming through a waking city.</p><p>‘Listen,’ says He Tian. For the last minute, he’s been drawing lines in the condensation of the window. His hands are large, Guan Shan notices, fingers long and elegant like a pianist’s beneath the gloves. ‘I have a house that needs some work doing on it. The garden, too. I know it’s winter, but—’</p><p>‘You’re offerin’ me a job, are you?’</p><p>‘No need to sound so defensive.’</p><p>‘I’m not, I just—Sorry, you don’t know me.’</p><p>
  <em>And this is all feeling very convenient. </em>
</p><p>‘I don’t think I’d know anyone I might hire on,’ He Tian remarks, with that same remarkable sense of self-assurance and common sense that Guan Shan is beginning to find a bit irritating. It makes him feel stupid, like he’s been ignorant to something very very obvious all his life that He Tian is now taking the time to point out to him.</p><p>‘I don’t need charity. If that’s what this is.’</p><p>‘I need a job doing that I haven’t had time to do and I’m willing to pay someone to do it. <em>That’s</em> what this is.’</p><p>Embarrassed, Guan Shan looks away. It’s nearly his stop and he gets to his feet, holding onto one of the hand-holds above his head. He Tian’s expression is open, waiting, and Guan Shan feels self-conscious with himself. He’s wearing the same puffer jacket that he was the night before, a pair of jeans that are the same colour and style as he was wearing last night, too.</p><p>He Tian must think he doesn’t have any clothes—or that he hasn’t showered. He feels the ridiculous impulse to tell He Tian that he has, in fact, taken a shower and he does, in fact, have more clothes. His life isn’t that dire—but that’s not very true either, strictly speaking. Perhaps He Tian is one of those people that doesn’t care much about what other people wear or own, because an excess of money and wealth means he doesn’t care all that much about the things he wears or owns either. It’s redundant. It’s just a <em>thing. </em></p><p>He Tian’s looking at him, waiting for an answer.</p><p>Guan Shan pulls himself out from his own head. ‘This is my stop. Can I call you or somethin’? Later?’</p><p>‘To talk about the job.’</p><p>‘That’s what I meant.’</p><p>He Tian smirks. ‘Here,’ he says. He hands Guan Shan a business card, and Guan Shan doesn’t look down at it. He Tian carries <em>business cards. </em>‘Call my personal number. Any time, I’ll pick up.’</p><p>‘So four-a.m.?’ Guan Shan asks, feeling snarky and annoying.</p><p>‘Any time, sure,’ says He Tian.</p><p>Guan Shan shakes his head. He shakes the card indistinctly in He Tian’s direction, then starts to make his way to the middle of the bus where the doors have slid open. He lifts a hand to the driver and spares one more glance to where He Tian is sitting—watching Guan Shan, smiling. Guan Shan steps out into the cold, and the doors slide shut. The bus pulls away.</p><p> </p><p>///</p><p> </p><p>‘He’ll need a check up tomorrow on his head—the paramedics booked him an appointment.’</p><p>‘I dunno why you’re telling me,’ says Guan Shan. ‘I’m not his guardian.’</p><p>‘But you live with him,’ says the officer behind the desk. ‘So do us a favour and make sure someone who cares about him knows.’</p><p>‘Because he cares so fuckin’ much about anyone else, does he?’</p><p>The woman doesn’t say anything, just hands him some paperwork. ‘For a case like this, he’ll receive a charge sheet in a couple of weeks, and then a magistrates’ hearing about a month later.’</p><p>‘So nothin’ happens to him now?’</p><p>‘Other than not being permitted to leave the country and having his license suspended with immediate effect?’ The officer glances at him, a sharp, green-eyed look. ‘Is that good enough?’</p><p>‘It’ll do,’ Guan Shan grunts.</p><p>A door opens beside the desk, and another officer steps through, one hand firmly on She Li’s shoulder as she leads him through. He looks like shit. There’s still some blood in his hair and he’s pale as milk, making the bruises under both eyes like circles of oil.</p><p>Did he break his nose, too?</p><p>‘My chaperone,’ he says to Guan Shan while the officer undoes the cuffs around his wrists. ‘Didn’t think you’d come.’</p><p>Guan Shan clenches his jaw. ‘I’m second-guessin’ my choice, that’s for sure.’</p><p>He stands to one side while the officers hand She Li his possessions, give him some paperwork and information about the process on his case. It won’t be a difficult one, the officers tell him. No one was hurt—but someone could’ve been. Toxicology will come back in a few weeks and Guan Shan’s car is ready to pick up from a local repair shop tonight. Probably, he won’t be able to take it off the forecourt without being fixed, which Guan Shan doesn’t have the energy to think about.</p><p>He can press charges, if he’d like. Theft of a vehicle. The Guard behind the desk offers it open-endedly, pulling him to one side, and Guan Shan only shakes his head at her mutely. She gives him a concerned look.</p><p>They leave the station half an hour later, and She Li asks if they can walk for a few minutes before getting the bus.</p><p>‘That cell gave me a headache,’ he says as they wander down the street.</p><p>‘I don’t think it was the cell,’ says Guan Shan, eyeing the blood in his hair. ‘Anyway it can’t have been any less comfortable than your sofa, can it.’</p><p>‘You’re in a mood.’</p><p>‘You stole and wrecked my car, She Li. I could’ve pressed charges.’</p><p>She Li lights up a cigarette. ‘Why didn’t you?’</p><p>‘Askin’ myself that now, truth be told.’</p><p>What answer has he got, really? He owes She Li nothing. He doesn’t even like the man. Most of the time, he hates him. He rubs his face until his eyes hurt. This was all just a matter of time. Something like this had to have happened sooner or later; She Li’s lifestyle couldn’t have sustained itself for long. And Guan Shan hasn’t done a thing about it. What can he do?</p><p><em>Coward, </em>he thinks, spitting at himself.</p><p>‘I need a coffee,’ says She Li. ‘A strong one.’</p><p>‘You need to stop drinkin’.’</p><p>‘Why?’ She Li retorts, flicking ash on the ground. ‘I’ve got a good salary and I pay my taxes. There’s no law that stops me from drinking.’</p><p>Guan Shan stops. ‘You could’ve <em>killed</em> someone—or yourself. Don’t you <em>care</em>, you fuck?’</p><p>‘Not particularly.’</p><p>Guan Shan pulls himself upright. ‘What about when they sentence you to prison, hey?’</p><p>‘They’re not going to. I’ll get a decent lawyer, and I don’t have a record. I’ll get a fine and a temporary ban.’</p><p>‘Jesus,’ Guan Shan mutters. ‘I can’t do this.’</p><p>‘Do what?’</p><p>Guan Shan smacks the papers he’s holding against She Li’s chest, and takes a step back when She Li eventually takes hold of them. She Li looks like he’s spent the night on the lash, taking too many shots and beers and ending up in some stupid bar fight out in the street. Guan Shan wishes that was all it could’ve been. He wishes She Li didn’t have to try to put the stakes higher just to fucking feel something.</p><p>‘Make your own way home,’ says Guan Shan.</p><p>‘My phone’s dead. I can’t call a cab.’</p><p>Guan Shan starts to walk away. ‘I don’t care.’</p><p>‘Guan Shan,’ She Li says, louder. His cigarette hangs at his side, and the few people around the street stare at them, then look away.</p><p>‘You can walk,’ Guan Shan throws over his shoulder. ‘Frankly, She Li, I don’t give a fuck what you do.’</p><p> </p><p>///</p><p> </p><p>He walks around the city for the rest of the day. He should conserve his cash, but instead he buys himself breakfast to settle his stomach, of which he doesn’t eat much, and then a couple of coffees that he drinks the contents of in quick succession. He buys a postcard to send to his ma from a cheap tourist shop in a moment of sentimentality and makes a donation at the National Museum on his way in. He gets a call by the time it’s dark outside and the museum’s getting ready to close, and he lets it ring a little while before answering.</p><p>‘What do you want?’</p><p>‘Don’t come back tonight, Mo Guan Shan.’</p><p>Guan Shan scowls. ‘You’re kickin’ me out, are you?’</p><p>‘Haven’t decided yet,’ says She Li. He sounds drunk. There’s a clatter somewhere on the other end of the line.</p><p>‘Is somewhere there?’</p><p>‘Why? Do you want to join? Maybe that’s all you need. A good fucking—’</p><p>Guan Shan hangs up, raging. One of the museum staff gives him a pointed look from the corner of the room, touching their earpiece, and Guan Shan shoves his phone in his pocket.</p><p>‘It’s fine, I’m done,’ he mutters, making a show of shoving the phone back in his pocket, before reluctantly tugging it back out again. He needs to be smart about this. He’s got no job and no place to stay for the night.</p><p>He swipes open the WhatsApp group chat between himself, Jian Yi, and Zhengxi, and unmutes it for the first time in a couple of days. There are plenty of messages there to scroll through, mostly memes from Facebook and stupid Buzzfeed quizzes. There’s some talk about a good show on Netflix but not much else. Anything serious and they would've called. Guan Shan should call now, but a touch of anxiety makes his throat tight. He types the message instead.</p><p><strong>Guan Shan [16:48] </strong>is anyone staying at your gaff tonight?</p><p>The reply comes instantly, two people typing at once.</p><p></p><blockquote>
  <p><strong>Jian Yi [16:49]</strong> Come over!!!</p>
  <p><strong>Zhan Zhengxi [16:49]</strong> Do you need a place to stay? Is everything okay?</p>
</blockquote><p>Guan Shan swallows. His fingers feel slow.</p><p><strong>Guan Shan [16:51] </strong>i can get there in an hour?</p><p><strong>Jian Yi [16:52]</strong> Come over!!!!!!!</p><p>Guan Shan sighs. It’s a twenty minute bus ride to their flat, just the other side of St Anne’s park and a little way south of the airport, and Guan Shan passes by the local Aldi to pick up some things for dinner. They’re passable cooks, Zhengxi the better of the two of them, but Guan Shan is better than both of them combined and doesn’t know how else to say thank you.</p><p>He gets there by six, listening to the weatherman over the radio on the bus talking about a cold front hitting them in the next couple of days and hinting at a chance of snow. Guan Shan doesn’t remember the last time he saw snow; he distantly recalls a lad’s trip to Scotland one February after finishing their sixth year, hiring a cheap campervan and making their way through the highlands and its fire-warmed pubs, jump-starting the van in a snowstorm.</p><p>‘Feckin’ global warming,’ someone mutters beside him on the bus, while Christmas music starts to play over the speakers, and Guan Shan buries his chin into his puffer jacket.</p><p> </p><p>///</p><p> </p><p>‘What’s the craic, Mo Guan Shan!’ Jian Yi crows, tugging him inside. ‘How are you, lad?’</p><p>‘Devil a bit,’ Guan Shan mutters, letting himself be dragged in, his coat pulled from his shoulders, the ‘bag for life’ from Aldi carted off behind a door through to the small kitchen. They’ve already cracked open a bottle of wine and Guan Shan accepts the hearty glass he’s handed as he pulls off his shoes.</p><p>The heat inside the apartment hits him instantly. It’s always running a little too hot, the old radiators cranked up high enough they burn to the touch, and the apartment smells faintly of incense and weed. Guan Shan has the sudden urge to shove open a window and gulp down a huge lungful of late-November air.</p><p>‘That’s a big one, that is,’ he says, pointing at the Christmas tree wedged into the corner of the living room, pines constricted between the wall and the table next to the sofa, which already has a pile of folded linen and a pillow laid on top.</p><p>He looks back at the tree, already starting to lose its needles. It’s decorated baudily, with plastic baubles and little animal figures wearing Santa hats that are littered about sparsely. Guan Shan decides it’s been decorated by someone who was either very distracted or very drunk, and most likely both.</p><p>‘We got it from Aldi,’ says Zhengxi with a grimace, perched on the edge of a dining chair against one side of the wall. ‘Wasn’t gone on the idea of pulling one from your place on the bus. Don’t think the driver would’ve liked us very much.’</p><p>‘Ha,’ says Guan Shan. ‘It’s fine. Not my place anymore, anyway.’</p><p>Jian Yi and Zhengxi exchange a look.</p><p>‘I thought you had yourself a job there,’ says Jian Yi slowly.</p><p>‘Until last night, yeah, I did.’ He takes a sip of the wine. It’s cheap, sharply acidic on the back of his tongue, but he’s not particular—not tonight. He realises the mood is a dangerous one, but at least he won’t steal someone’s car and wreck it after a bottle. They move into the cramped kitchen and he tells them what happened while he cooks up a chickpea stew and Jian Yi gapes while he measures out rice and water into a saucepan.</p><p>‘You can stay as long as you like,’ Zhengxi says seriously, leaning against the sink. He drinks his wine slowly, tops up Jian Yi’s glass when it threatens to go empty.</p><p>‘That’s decent of you, thanks,’ says Guan Shan, frowning over the small two-ring stove. ‘Maybe this is what I needed. Somethin’ just to tip everythin’ over the edge.’</p><p>‘She Li should’ve taken himself with it,’ Jian Yi mutters, swiping up his now-full wine glass and hoisting himself onto one of the only spare countertops not smothered with opened cereal boxes, spare change, and packets of ramen. ‘I fucking hate that guy. I really hate him. I do.’</p><p>‘Mm,’ says Zhengxi, sipping his wine. ‘Are you alright, though? Really?’</p><p>Guan Shan realises he’s talking to him. ‘Yeah, I guess. I’ll sort something. I think I’ve got enough cash to get a flight to Sichuan, maybe.’</p><p>‘You’d really go?’ Jian Yi asks, kicking his feet against the drawers below him. The saucepan with the rice in has started to bubble, and Jian Yi leans over, putting the heat down to a simmer and popping on an ill-fitting lid. ‘You’d come back to Dublin, though, wouldn’t you?’</p><p>‘Maybe,’ says Guan Shan. ‘Honestly, I don’t know what to do.’ He chews on his lip. ‘You lads don’t mind, do you? If I spend a few days here figurin’ it all out?’</p><p>‘That depends how good the stew is,’ says Jian Yi.</p><p>Zhengxi shoots him a stern look and says again, ‘You can stay as long as you like.’</p><p> </p><p>///</p><p> </p><p>Jian Yi and Zhengxi go to bed by half-ten and they’ll be up early the next morning to finish up some trade work at a house in town. Guan Shan’s left staring at the living room ceiling, feeling the springs of the sofa bed twinge beneath him every time he moves. He’s borrowed a t-shirt and a pair of Zhengxi’s sweats, and doesn’t think too much about how even the spare newly packaged toothbrush Zhengxi gives him before he goes to bed isn’t his own. He could leave tomorrow and never come back. There’s nothing here he needs.</p><p>He still has his keys, could grab his passport tomorrow morning if She Li hasn’t already changed the locks, and be on a flight out via Heathrow by lunch time. He’d land in Sichuan without a single fucking penny to his name. The general themes of his inner thoughts are familiar to him: leaving Dublin, destitution, living on the cusp of homelessness. Each one hammers another nail of anxiety into his skull that leaves him tossing and turning on the springy mattress and eventually reaching for his phone.</p><p>The bright light of his phone stings his eyes and he drags the setting down to a muted dullness. In the dark, he swipes through familiar cooking accounts on Instagram for half an hour, tries and fails to complete an impossible level of Candy Crush, and reads up on an old school mate’s travel blog while they trek across South America, sporting greasy hair, a decent tan, and rich kid white teeth from some mountainous summit in the Andes. Guan Shan’s eyes hover on the #<em>nomadlifestyle</em> quip at the end of the post, knowing this person he was friendly with at school has never been close enough to the situation Guan Shan finds himself in now.</p><p>He decides the hashtag is a rich kid playing at homelessness, which will eventually end after a few weeks of lukewarm Coronas and an uncomfortable hostel bed. They’ll be on a flight back to Dublin before Christmas, take a hot shower, and start some fancy job in the new year that they’ve had lined up since their internship at Trinners.</p><p>Guan Shan rolls on his side. He’s feeling bitter tonight. He wonders if He Tian went to Trinity—and then, almost mechanically, he sits up.</p><p>He Tian.</p><p>Guan Shan can feel himself getting to his feet, moving across in the darkness of the living room and over to the coat stand where Zhengxi had hung his jacket earlier. They turned the Christmas tree lights off before they went to bed.</p><p>‘In case there’s a fire,’ Zhengxi had said, very seriously. ‘But you can keep them on if you want.’</p><p>Guan Shan’s fingers work around the card in his pocket. For some reason he’s surprised that it’s still there. It feels almost like he’d imagined it all. He Tian, buying the twelve-foot Christmas tree at the farm last night. He Tian, sitting across from him on the bus. Like a figment of his imagination. Some kind of dark, handsome saviour Guan Shan had invented to make himself feel better about all the stuff that’s just been dumped on his doorstep. All the terrible, terrible, steaming piles of shite.</p><p>He dials the number.</p><p>‘He Tian,’ says a hard voice, after the fourth ring.</p><p>Guan Shan puts his fist against his mouth and feels his teeth cutting against his knuckles. He’s forgotten momentarily how to breathe. He Tian’s voice didn’t sound like that before. This is business-like and stern. Masculine. Guan Shan’s stomach twists strangely.</p><p>The silence stretches.</p><p>He can almost hear He Tian’s mouth curving into a smile.</p><p>‘You’re early,’ he says, and now his voice has softened—gone back to normal. The normal that Guan Shan is familiar with, anyway.</p><p>Guan Shan swallows noisily and drops his hand. ‘I don’t know what you mean.’</p><p>‘It’s only midnight. You’re four hours early.’</p><p>Guan Shan looks at the clock hanging above the front door.</p><p>
  <em>So four-am.?</em>
</p><p>Jesus, what a fucking idiot. Did he really say that?</p><p>‘Yeah, I guess I am. Sorry.’</p><p>He Tian laughs. ‘It’s alright. Are you okay? How did it go with the Gardaí?’</p><p>Guan Shan exhales deeply. The station—was that really this morning? Eighteen hours ago, he counts. Almost a whole day.</p><p>‘It was shite, honestly. I’m staying at a friend’s tonight. She Li told me not to go back.’</p><p>‘Did he really? And you listened to him?’</p><p>Guan Shan moves back over to the bed, holding his breath while he settles back down onto it, as if trying to become weightless. The springs creak regardless, and he hopes He Tian doesn’t ask what the sound was. He sits up, propping a pillow behind his back, pulling the sheets up to his armpits.</p><p>‘I didn’t want a fight,’ he says eventually.</p><p>‘You live there, too.’</p><p>‘Not legally,’ Guan Shan says. ‘Not on paper. I’m not on the rental contract. He can do whatever the fuck he likes. My own fault, really.’</p><p>‘I don’t think that’s quite true.’</p><p>Guan Shan sneers. ‘You’d know that, would you?’</p><p>‘I could make an educated guess,’ He Tian says simply.</p><p>Guan Shan shakes his head, forces himself to simmer down. He focuses instead on the things around him: the dark silhouette of the Christmas tree, the fabric softener scent of the sheets, the taste of garlic and onion from the stew on the back of his tongue.</p><p>He thinks of the oddness of this conversation, which feels far easier than it should, calling some stranger at midnight. He tries to picture where He Tian might be. Sitting at some bar maybe, nursing a tumbler of whiskey. Enveloped in a large leather chair behind a fancy desk in his study. Sitting on the edge of his bed—</p><p>‘So this work thing,’ Guan Shan blurts. ‘D’ye still need someone?’</p><p>‘I haven’t looked elsewhere, if that’s what you’re asking.’</p><p>‘What are the terms?’</p><p>‘That depends,’ says He Tian. ‘Do you want cash or am I submitting an employer’s application to the Revenue?’</p><p>Guan Shan chews on his lip. ‘I think I should start workin’ above board for once.’</p><p>‘Fine by me,’ says He Tian, before saying, ‘I’ve inherited a house I don’t know what to do with. I need someone to make it liveable.’</p><p>‘Liveable?’</p><p>‘Heating, plumbing, new flooring, furniture fitting. The works.’</p><p>Guan Shan hesitates. ‘Maybe there’s been some kind of misunderstandin’ with what I meant by <em>horticulture</em>—’</p><p>‘The garden needs fixing, too,’ He Tian interrupts. ‘It’s been overgrown for years. A rotting shed, a neglected pond. I’m thinking of archways and vegetable planters. Something neater.’</p><p>‘I can help with that maybe, but—’</p><p>‘Do you know anyone else who can help with the rest?’</p><p>Guan Shan’s eyes flick to Jian Yi’s and Zhengxi’s closed bedroom door, which has stayed silent so far. He knows they’re finishing a job tomorrow, but he doesn’t know what other work they have lined up. Jian Yi is a good decorator, his sights set on interior design. Zhengxi’s skilled at anything that comes with a set of instructions. They make a decent pair.</p><p>Christmas is always strange for them—Guan Shan knows they’re either booked up with jobs urgently needing to be finished before the holiday, or quiet while no one wants renovations disrupting the festive serenity of their own home.</p><p>‘I know some lads who might, but they might already have work. I can’t promise anything. What you’re sayin’ sounds like more than three weeks of work.’</p><p>‘I’ll pay well,’ says He Tian, which Guan Shan knows means, <em>I’ll pay you well enough you’ll finish in three weeks without a choice. </em></p><p>‘Where’s the house?’</p><p>‘Kilkoscan.’</p><p>Guan Shan’s eyebrows lift. Not a city boy. He knows the town, small and surrounded by fields, not too far—a twenty-five minute drive out of Dublin at most, just on the county border and north of the airport. What the fuck is He Tian doing living out there?</p><p>‘I don’t have a car,’ says Guan Shan.</p><p>‘It’s fifty minutes on the bus from the college. Or I can pick you up.’</p><p>‘I don’t have any tools.’</p><p>‘I’ll get anything you need.’</p><p>Guan Shan pulls the sheets up to his throat. He’s posturing with the action; he knows he isn’t going to sleep at all tonight now. Probably, he’ll lie wide awake until the morning, pretending to be asleep while Jian Yi and Zhengxi whisper to each other in the kitchen the next morning and swear when the toaster pops up, and then eventually drift off when they slip out the front door before the sun has risen.</p><p>He likes the thought of that—of sleeping until three or four in the afternoon before taking a shower and eating leftover stew out of the tupperware. Perhaps he’ll take a walk around St Anne’s just before it gets dark and go to Aldi again. He’ll cook something traditional, maybe, if he has time.</p><p>‘I think you’re makin’ a bit of a mistake here, you know,’ he tells He Tian.</p><p>‘I don’t think that’s quite true.’</p><p>Guan Shan isn’t sure if he’s meant to laugh at the repeated statement. Is that a joke between them now?</p><p>‘Do your brother and mother live there with you?’ he asks instead. ‘At the house?’</p><p>‘No, they don’t.’</p><p>Annoyed, Guan Shan asks, ‘So you live alone?’</p><p>‘That’s the gist of it, yes.’ He Tian sounds amused—he always sounds amused, Guan Shan thinks, and isn’t sure at whose expense the joke is being played out.</p><p>‘I’ll obviously need to see the house before I say yes.’</p><p>‘That’s fine,’ says He Tian.</p><p>‘I’d have to take photos, too. So I know what I’m workin’ with and all.’</p><p>‘Take as many as you like. I might even have some old blueprints of the house somewhere.’</p><p>Guan Shan nods, then realises He Tian can’t see this.</p><p>‘Grand,’ he says.</p><p>His chest feels suddenly very tight, and he lies his free hand over it on the sheets, clenching it into a fist as if mirroring the sensation, his fingers wrapping painfully around his heart and his lungs—tight enough that his hand starts to tremor.</p><p>‘So, when can I come over?’ he asks, staring at the clock above the front door.</p><p>‘That depends,’ says He Tian. ‘How would you feel about now?’</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. Chapter 2</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>‘I hope you haven’t gone back to She Li’s, because that would be pretty stupid.’</p><p>‘I haven’t. I’m just goin’ somewhere. I won’t be long.’</p><p>‘Is the bed not comfortable for you?’</p><p>‘No, it’s grand. It’s fine. I won’t be long.’</p><p>Guan Shan can hear Zhengxi breathing a little heavily down the end of the phone. His words are quiet and very clear, and Guan Shan thinks he must be standing in the bathroom or out in the kitchen with the door shut, cold tiling beneath bare feet.</p><p>‘Guan Shan, I don’t mean to pry, but—’</p><p>‘I might have a job. That’s all. I’m on my way to check it out.’</p><p>He realises how it sounds. Zhengxi’s silence grows more profound as the seconds tick by, and eventually he sighs.</p><p>‘Alright.’</p><p>‘Does Jian Yi know I’m gone?’ Guan Shan asks.</p><p>‘No, he’s still sleeping. I don’t want to wake him. It would be good if you could get back before he’s up.’</p><p>‘I’ll try,’ says Guan Shan.</p><p>They hang up shortly after. There’s not much else to say and Zhengxi’s silent concern threatens to cripple him, thick guilt like a weighted blanket that isn’t meant to be judgmental but happens to make Guan Shan feel very judged. What must Zhengxi think of him? The worst, probably, but in a kindly way. It isn’t like Guan Shan tried to explain himself; he didn’t know where to begin. He’s aware that this is the root of many of his own problems.</p><p>He almost tells the Uber driver to turn around but doesn’t. The buses are still running at this time of night but less frequently, and he’d booked a taxi when his second bus promised not to arrive for another thirty minutes. The sky is thick and starless outside, and the digital display screen in the car says that it’s minus two degrees. Unusually cold for a November night.</p><p>‘Looks like we might get snow,’ says the driver, half to himself. ‘Looks like they might be right for once.’</p><p>Guan Shan catches the man’s eye in the mirror and nods.</p><p>‘I guess so.’</p><p>‘They’ve been gritting every night for weeks on these roads. It’s the ones out of town that fuck you over though. They never deal with the ice. Soon as you get into the farmland you’re buggered and arse-up in a hedge.’</p><p>Guan Shan meets his gaze again. His eyes flick to the man’s phone, which has the GPS running. They’re three minutes away from He Tian’s place.</p><p>‘I guess so.’</p><p>The driver lifts an eyebrow and scratches at the strands of greying hair beneath his beanie.</p><p>‘D’you want a mint?’</p><p>‘Not really, sorry. Thanks.’</p><p>The driver shrugs. He pops open the cap of a Tic Tac box and shakes what must be five or six little mints into his mouth at once before grinding them between his molars like chewing tobacco.</p><p>Guan Shan shifts his gaze to the windscreen, through which the headlights reveal a quiet rural road that has various signs pop up beside half-concealed entrances, warning for deer and sharp bends in the road. Occasionally they pass the entrance to a farm or somewhere with a sign outside that reads, <em>Apples, swede, potatoes. 10kg for €15.</em></p><p>The driver flicks on his indicator, and Guan Shan realises they’re turning down one such road. No—a driveway. He glances down at his phone; it’s the right place. The tyres seem to roll forever down a gravelled track before coming to a stop, and Guan Shan can’t see anything in the darkness.</p><p>‘Further?’ the guy asks.</p><p>Guan Shan realises the GPS has ended, and he shakes his head. ‘Here’s fine,’ he lies.</p><p>‘I can keep going—’</p><p>‘This is great, thanks,’ Guan Shan grunts, reaching for the car handle.</p><p>The driver cranes his neck through the windshield. ‘This is it? You want me to wait?</p><p>‘No, I’m alright. Thanks for that. Have a nice night.’</p><p>He doesn’t look back once the car door is shut, flicking the torch on his phone to full brightness and wincing at the cold. He gives a half-wave to the driver, who may or may not catch the gesture, and the car makes a three-point turn before heading back down the driveway, blinking its hazards before turning out the drive.</p><p>Guan Shan shakes himself and swings his phone torch around, taking stock. The driveway continues up a little further, and Guan Shan’s trainers crunch against the stone and grit along the track as he walks. He follows the path round a slight bend, and lets out a held breath when his phone falls onto the familiar metal sheen of He Tian’s car and there, set behind it, is the house.</p><p>‘Alright then,’ he mutters to himself.</p><p>There’s a light on through one of the windows on the ground floor, an orange glow seeping outwards. It gives Guan Shan a kind of control as he takes stock of the rest of the house in the darkness. He counts three floors, maybe an attic, and at least five windows across each floor at the front of the house. It’s an old farmhouse, he realises, built of light stone and a grey roof that at some point in its history might have been thatched, along which Guan Shan counts several chimneys. The windows are tall and sash-style, and the large front door is painted a festive red.</p><p><em>Three weeks, </em>Guan Shan thinks. <em>He’s fucking mental. </em></p><p>Up ahead there’s a rattling sound, like keys being shaken as a door’s unlocked, and Guan Shan steadies himself as he takes a small step past the car and along a thin pathway leading up to the house.</p><p>‘Round here!’ calls a voice.</p><p>Guan Shan pauses, then follows the voice around the side of the house, where he finds He Tian with his head poking out a side door. He waves.</p><p>‘I never use the front door. This way leads into the kitchen.’</p><p>His head withdraws, and Guan Shan quickens his pace, as if there’s a possibility He Tian might choose to lock him out now that he’s here, and the joke has been played.</p><p>He doesn’t. He’s standing just inside the house when Guan Shan reaches the door and steps in, realising with some small despair that it offers no greater warmth than the outside.</p><p>He Tian gives him a pitying look.</p><p>‘Heating,’ he says.</p><p>‘It’s fuckin’ freezin’,’ Guan Shan retorts, going still as He Tian reaches around him to lock the door again, seemingly unbothered by the sudden proximity it puts them in.</p><p>Perhaps Guan Shan should have thought this through a little better. He’s standing in the dark house of a stranger at midnight with no phone service and a locked door at his back.</p><p>He swallows.</p><p>He should have told Zhengxi where he is.</p><p>‘Follow me,’ says He Tian.</p><p>Guan Shan hasn’t got a choice. If nothing else, he has to pretend to be amenable. He follows He Tian through a small utility area, and then through to a huge open kitchen with flagstone flooring and an Arger against one wall. There are no counters, drawers or cupboards, only a bookshelf shoved against another wall filled with dried goods and non-perishables, a nineteenth-century free-standing press, and a small mini fridge incongruous with the rest of the kitchen, which would do well in a barn in the middle ages.</p><p>They leave the kitchen behind them, walking through a hallway layered in dust sheets, where there branches off more rooms with closed doors, and then eventually they step into a large living room that holds an almost breathless amount of heat.</p><p>There, in the middle of the room, a log burner stands proudly pumping out heat against the charred glass, and Guan Shan feels warmth fill his cheeks. The orange light, he realises.</p><p>‘I spend most of my time here,’ says He Tian. ‘Which I suppose is quite obvious.’</p><p>It is—the room is a hodgepodge of bookshelves and cardboard boxes spilling over. A sofa stretches before the fire, smothered beneath a series of blankets and cushions. On the rug in front of the fire, a huge dog with a shaggy grey coat has got its head resting on its paws, watching Guan Shan with tired, briefly curious eyes. Some sort of hound, Guan Shan thinks. It makes a snuffling sound and then rolls on its side, its head lolling, its belly exposed to the fire.</p><p>Guan Shan looks away and observes the Christmas tree not far from the fire, which stands tall and proud and barely touches the ceiling. It’s undecorated, and Guan Shan can’t decide if this makes it seem more or less alien in the huge, cluttered, yet oddly sparse living room. It gives the impression of some kind of traveller’s tent or Mongolian yurt, a warm room filled with trinkets and pieces of furniture, half curiosity, half necessity.</p><p>Lastly, when he can’t let it go unnoticed, Guan Shan’s eyes go to the corner of the room, where a large bed sits almost obnoxiously, neatly made and unslept-in.</p><p>‘Why need a mansion when you can just live in one room, is it?’ says Guan Shan, still looking at the bed.</p><p>He Tian laughs, and the sound makes Guan Shan jump. He Tian settles himself down on one side of the sofa, which is large enough that they can sit at either end and be comfortably far apart without any risk of touching.</p><p>‘Now you understand. <em>Liveable</em>.’ He Tian spreads his arms around the back of the sofa and crosses one leg over at the knee. He looks at home here, his cheeks warmed by the fire, the black spark in his eyes dancing. ‘I had every intention of making this place somewhat decent, but I haven’t quite got there yet.’</p><p>‘Yet,’ says Guan Shan, a little constricted.</p><p>‘It looks even more sad in the day. But then everything looks different in the day, I think.’</p><p>Guan Shan is very aware of the way He Tian is looking at him.</p><p>‘You’ve only seen me at night,’ he says, speaking it aloud just as he realises it. He should say ‘we’<em>—we’ve </em>only seen each at night. The statement sounds arrogant to him now.</p><p>‘I have,’ He Tian agrees, not seeming to mind. ‘Which I think is a bit of a privilege and a shame. An utter waste, honestly.’</p><p>Guan Shan’s cheeks feel hot. ‘I don’t really know why I’m here.’</p><p>‘Because I asked you to come.’</p><p>‘I don’t really know why I said I would. Seems fuckin’ stupid now.’</p><p>He Tian lifts a brow. ‘Because it’s dark?’</p><p>‘Because—Because—’ Guan Shan’s tongue stumbles and he stops himself from talking. This is impossibly frustrating to him. He wishes he could look like He Tian at this moment: collected, self-assured, unbothered by the state of things, content only to be warmed by the steady burning of the fire.</p><p>‘Sit,’ says He Tian, getting to his feet in a fluid motion. He moves across the room, stepping over his sedate hound. There’s a wicker basket of chopped kindling and wood logs beside the fire. He Tian pulls on a large black glove to twist the handle of the log burner’s door open. The flames dart about with the sudden influx of oxygen, and then a soft sound of wood spitting as He Tian adds on another log atop the husk of already burnt embers.</p><p>‘Warm yourself up,’ he says, shutting the door again with a twist. ‘I’ll get us some tea. Whiskey, is it?’</p><p>‘Tea’s fine.’</p><p> </p><p>///</p><p> </p><p>‘I can’t help noticing that you seem very at war with yourself about certain things, Mo Guan Shan.’</p><p>‘I don’t think you know me well enough to say that,’ Guan Shan replies, adding milk and two sugars from the tray to his tea. ‘But go on then.’</p><p>He Tian grins. ‘<em>Do your worst,</em> is it? Where to start…’</p><p>Guan Shan shifts. His tea’s too hot to drink so he wanders around the room, taking inventory, self-consciously taking photos on his phone for reference. He Tian’s found the blueprints he mentioned; they are huge and sprawling, the house looking somehow bigger on the sheets than in actuality. There are scribbles on them, pencil markings, notes scrawled briefly around the margins. The paper feels dry and brittle to the touch. The prints are old, but then so is the house.</p><p>He takes a photo of one of the sash window frames and puts a hand against the wood. It maintains its integrity; it looks undamaged by age. It’s been well-kept, and He Tian would be a fool to change the structure of the house behind minor works. Guan Shan turns.</p><p>‘Thought you had questions for me,’ he tells He Tian.</p><p>He Tian makes a vague gesture with his hand. He’s sitting on the sofa with one long leg crossed over the other and drinks his tea with a saucer.</p><p>‘Changed my mind. Besides, I suspect they’re foregone conclusions.’ He pauses, then smiles. He looks up beneath long, dark lashes. ‘Plus I don’t think you’ll be very impressed with what I have to say.’</p><p>‘Not impressed with what most people have to say, if we’re bein’ honest.’</p><p>‘Ah, well.’ He Tian smiles. ‘Drink your tea, then we’ll talk business.’</p><p>Guan Shan takes a few more photos. He considers the brick work, the beams running parallel across the ceiling. There’s a draft coming from somewhere. He visualises the space, how it could be.</p><p>‘How much money are you wantin’ to throw at this place?’ he asks.</p><p>‘Money’s not really the issue here.’</p><p>‘What is the issue?’ Guan Shan asks. He sits and picks up his tea, neglecting the saucer on the table. The cup is dainty and a little ridiculous.</p><p>‘Time,’ says He Tian. ‘I’m not looking to change much.’</p><p>‘Has it always been like this?’</p><p>‘For a few decades, I suppose.’</p><p>Guan Shan hesitates. ‘What’s the rush now, then? You want this place fixed up in three weeks and it’s already been sittin’ for what, fifty years? More?’</p><p>‘No time like the present.’</p><p>Guan Shan takes another sip before saying, ‘I thought you lived here with your family?’</p><p>‘Ah, no. I lived in town then.’</p><p>‘So you bought this place like this?’</p><p>He Tian smiles and shakes his head. ‘It’s been in the family for a while. My mother had wanted to renovate it, but never got around to it. We had a suite in the Westin. The hotel. Do you know it?’</p><p>‘I’ve seen it,’ Guan Shan grunts. He’s familiar with the marbled, nineteenth-century facade overlooking Trinity’s college green and its hundred-some rooms. He took his mother there for afternoon tea when he was sixteen, a few month’s wages at the local SPAR spent on overpriced scones and dry cucumber sandwiches. He remembers gold friezes and huge fires, marbled flooring and gilded cornices. A suite. ‘So youse all, like, lived there?’</p><p>‘For the most part. My father lived in Hong Kong or Shanghai most of the year, but he would come home at Christmas.’ He points upward. ‘Apparently whoever owned it before my grandmother died in the famine—it was left abandoned for nearly a hundred years.’</p><p>‘Why did your grandmother buy it?’</p><p>‘She left Hunan after the end of the war when the Communists came—turned this place into a fully working farm. She wasn’t inside much, as you might be able to tell. When she died, I think my mother bit off more than she could chew in thinking she could do the same.’</p><p>‘What stopped her?’</p><p>He Tian shrugs, a distractingly elegant gesture.</p><p>‘The usual. Having children and marrying my father. The latter was probably more damaging than the former.’</p><p>Guan Shan ruminates on the word ‘damaging’. There’s a gravity to it he can’t describe and yet feels intimately familiar with. He thinks it’s strange how people can be damaging—not like machines or bombs or bulldozers. Just people. Then he supposes that people control the machines and bombs and bulldozers, and maybe it makes sense. The destruction is an extension, an inhumanely long arm with which to cause other people pain. Guan Shan is familiar with that.</p><p>‘So did you not like your father, then?’</p><p>‘Did you?’</p><p>Guan Shan opens his mouth, confronted by the question. ‘This isn’t us talking about business, is it?’</p><p>‘Do you really want to talk about business at one in the morning?’</p><p>Guan Shan puts his empty teacup on the saucer, clattering noisily. ‘How much of the house are you wantin’ to change?’</p><p>‘As little as possible,’ He Tian replies immediately, seeming unbothered that Guan Shan hasn’t agreed to play his game.</p><p>‘You want all the rooms doin’?’</p><p>‘Kitchen, bedroom, bathrooms. This room. The dining room and study can wait until the new year—so can the other bedrooms.’</p><p>‘Bedrooms. Plural.’ Guan Shan sheafs through the blueprints, eyeing the designs again. ‘And the garden. Not much I can do in winter, if I’m honest.’</p><p>He Tian lifts an eyebrow, and Guan Shan tries again.</p><p>‘I can put in borders and beds, get some bare roots in the ground. Do you want a hands-off landscape?’</p><p>‘Pardon me?’</p><p>‘Are you gonna be in the garden yourself next year—d’you want something high maintenance, I mean.’</p><p>He Tian leans against the arm of the sofa and props his cheek on a closed fist.</p><p>‘I don’t mind high maintenance,’ he says, ‘so long as it’s rewarding.’</p><p>Guan Shan pulls a face. ‘I’ll get some perennials in the ground if I can.’ He pulls up the drawing of the land, a large, rectangular space extending along the back of the house. He ignores the separate land deeds; he’s not going to touch the pasture beyond the house. Guan Shan runs his finger along the drystone walling boundaries, imagines them shaded by lines of yew trees, espaliered fruit trees and clusters of hydrangeas that will bloom pink and blue in summertime.</p><p>Out the front, he can play with something simpler: a hedgerow border of firethorn or laurel, arching over a wooden gate and leading onto the drive—something that won’t die when pruned like a cyprus.</p><p>He trails an imaginary pathway through the middle of the back garden, cobblestone or woodchip, pretty columns of snapdragons upheld by patches of zinnias and strawflowers, a touch of blue forget-me-nots; calendula and lavender under the kitchen windowsills. In the middle of the garden, rectangular planter beds of Oriental greens, daikon radishes, cabbages and purple sprouting broccoli, and a panelled archway of wisteria, bougainvillea or butternut squash across the path.</p><p>There’ll be a rose-covered pergola in one corner of the garden, east-facing to catch the sunrise, perhaps a free-standing fire pit if He Tian’s interested in sitting outside. Probably, he isn’t. The drawing grows smaller—not a pergola but an arbour, fit for two.</p><p>Guan Shan pauses.</p><p>There’s a pencil in his hand, markings across the paper. <em>His </em>markings. He drops the pencil and it rolls to the edge of the table, then falls. A second passes. Guan Shan shoots forward to pick it up.</p><p>‘Fuck, I’m sorry, I—’</p><p>‘Don’t apologise.’ He Tian has his head tilted, his expression curious. He puts his finger across one of Guan Shan’s sketches, runs his finger along the pencil lines, just as Guan Shan had done. ‘I like what you did here, with the…’</p><p>‘Archway?’</p><p>‘Mm.’</p><p>‘You can get the mesh panels for cheap from livestock companies—you won’t see the mesh when it’s grown over.’</p><p>‘And if cost isn’t a bother?’</p><p>Guan Shan gets the sense that He Tian is trying to be delicate about his wealth, which leads Guan Shan to believe that perhaps He Tian has a lot more money than he’d thought—more than this rundown cottage would suggest. More than a suite in the Westin. Fuck.</p><p>‘I guess you’d get some nice wrought iron arch, then. Victorian style, right? There are places that do custom orders. Not sure about this early before Christmas.’</p><p>‘See what you can do.’</p><p>Guan Shan swallows. ‘Sure.’</p><p>He Tian pours him more tea. ‘The bathrooms shouldn’t need gutting. I’m happy to keep the original flooring, but I’ll need new tiling around the walls, new appliances. Same for the kitchen.’</p><p>‘I mean, there’s nothin’ in there anyway.’</p><p>‘Yes, the bar’s not too high for that room, is it?’</p><p>‘Jian Yi and Zhengxi aren’t kitchen fitters, but they won’t bags it. They’ll do a decent job.’ Guan Shan scratches the back of his neck. ‘You should pay for someone better.’</p><p>‘Your friends, are they?’</p><p>Guan Shan nods.</p><p>‘I’ll take my chances.’</p><p>Guan Shan hesitates. ‘I’ll warn you: I’m not takin’ responsibility for them.’</p><p>‘No man is responsible for anyone but himself.’</p><p>Guan Shan considers his empty teacup. ‘D’you get off on handin’ out your quippy one-liners, then?’</p><p>He Tian outright laughs at this, showing a set of extremely white, straight teeth. It feels too late for that kind of laughter, and Guan Shan looks over at the hound who has lifted its head and now considers He Tian with patient, expectant eyes.</p><p>‘There’s the matter of your pay,’ He Tian says next. ‘And of your circumstances.’</p><p>‘My circumstances.’</p><p>‘You obviously don’t have a car.’</p><p>‘Obviously,’ says Guan Shan, a little bitterly.</p><p>‘And you aren’t on the best of terms with this She Li friend of yours.’</p><p>‘Obviously.’</p><p>‘So it makes a lot of sense for you to stay here, doesn’t it? I’ll grant you, it’s not ideal, but—’</p><p>‘Absolutely not.’ Guan Shan shakes his head. ‘Go ‘way outta that. No. I’ll get lifts here with the lads. They’ve got a van.’</p><p>‘Why not? I realise it’s a bit… Well.’</p><p>‘That’s got fuck all to do with it,’ he says. ‘I don’t know you.’</p><p>Patiently: ‘You came to my house in the middle of the night without knowing me.’</p><p>‘Don’t say it like that—’</p><p>‘It’s exactly what’s happened, isn’t it?’</p><p>Guan Shan gets to his feet. ‘I’m callin’ an Uber.’</p><p>‘Wait, Mo Guan Shan—’</p><p>Guan Shan stops by the door even though he wishes he hadn’t. When he turns, he feels flushed with relief to see that He Tian is still sitting, and that he looks to have no particular plan of getting up and moving.</p><p>‘You’ve got the wrong impression of me,’ says Guan Shan. ‘Lookin’ back, I can see why you’ve got it. But it’s not what you think. I’m not what you think.’</p><p>He Tian considers him from the sofa. ‘You seem to be under the impression that I expect you to have sex with me for this. Which I don’t, by the way.’</p><p>Something sharp jolts Guan Shan between the shoulder blades. Not quite pain, but something close. He Tian says ‘sex’ like he says ‘damaging’.</p><p>‘Right,’ Guan Shan says. ‘Well, that’s good.’</p><p>‘So you’ll reconsider, will you?’</p><p>‘No,’ says Guan Shan. ‘I’m not stayin’ here. I’ve got somewhere to stay.’</p><p>‘Do you?’</p><p>‘I’m obviously not homeless,’ Guan Shan growls. Fuck, does He Tian think he’s homeless? Does he think Guan Shan’s come here because he’s picked himself off the street and doesn’t have anywhere to go on a cold Saturday night on the streets of Dublin? Fuck!</p><p>‘I don’t think you’re homeless, Mo Guan Shan. I’m weighing up your options. If I were me, I’d choose me.’</p><p>‘Well of course you fuckin’ would.’</p><p>‘There’s also the matter of your pay,’ He Tian says again, as if the whole exchange hadn’t just occurred.</p><p>‘At this stage I don’t even wanna know.’</p><p>‘I was thinking fifty. I’ll pay for all tools and supplies, obviously. It won’t be out of pocket.’</p><p>Guan Shan hesitates. ‘Fifty a day? I can’t really—’</p><p>‘No, fifty grand. It’s a little over three weeks. Half before, half after.’</p><p>A beat of silence.</p><p>‘You’re takin’ the piss.’</p><p>‘I’m happy to pay cash, if you’re happy to not divulge that elsewhere.’</p><p>‘You’re payin’ me more for three weeks than I’d get in a year.’</p><p>‘Ah,’ says He Tian. He chuckles, an awkward sound. ‘I meant between the three of you.’</p><p>‘Oh.’</p><p>‘Roughly sixteen thousand each, I think.’</p><p>Embarrassment has turned Guan Shan’s ears a burning, itching pink. What a way to put himself on a fucking pedestal. He draws his lower lip between his teeth and works at the skin. The dog has gotten to its feet now. It wanders over, its limbs long and loping, and collapses back on its haunches at He Tian’s feet. Obligingly, He Tian scratches its head, chin, and ears. Its tongue lolls, panting from the heat of the fire.</p><p>‘Sixteen’s still too much,’ Guan Shan mumbles.</p><p>‘I don’t think so. Eight hundred a day, six days a week. I’m making assumptions about your skill, but I don’t think they’re misplaced.’</p><p>‘He Tian—’</p><p>‘Take the cash, Guan Shan. Just say yes. Honestly, it’s the easiest thing you’ll do all day.’</p><p> </p><p>///</p><p> </p><p>Guan Shan stays the night.</p><p>He can’t get an Uber this time of night and He Tian offers him a room that has a lock on the door when Guan Shan refuses to be driven back. He Tian shows him a guest bedroom a few rooms away from the living room.</p><p>The bed is large, the sheets clean and cold, but the floor is covered in cardboard boxes and there are a few pieces of furniture shoved against one wall which makes the navigable floor space particularly small. He Tian gives him an electric heater for the room, along with an old t-shirt and joggers from a cardboard box that has <em>He Cheng</em> written on it in permanent marker.</p><p>Guan Shan sleeps surprisingly well that night. He wakes up once in the night to take a piss and get a glass of water from the kitchen. The water tastes earthy and is cold enough that his teeth ache, and he lets the dog out the back door for a few minutes.</p><p>The cold strikes him while he stands there. He can’t see a single light beyond the house, and the sky is brilliantly clear. He watches the linear flight path of a few aeroplanes, their tail lights blinking, then tilts his head back and breathes out so his breath comes out in big, spiraling gusts, like he’s smoking a cigarette. He knows He Tian smokes, and considers going through He Tian’s coat pockets to find a pack, but the desire is fleeting and in the end he just goes back to sleep where his sheets are still warm.</p><p>By morning, He Tian has procured a few meagre offerings from the press and the bookshelf: cornflakes, white bread, a series of opened jams that have passed their sell-by date, and some cold sausages in a glass Tupperware container from the fridge. He Tian gets his milk in a glass bottle, still cold from where it’s been left outside the side door since morning.</p><p>‘I don’t usually eat breakfast,’ says He Tian. ‘And I tend to eat in town if I’m there.’</p><p>‘Don’t blame you,’ says Guan Shan, looking around. His mother would be concerned.</p><p>There is no microwave or oven to be seen, and Guan Shan opts for a bowl of cornflakes with sugar, which he eats standing up since there’s no table or chairs. He Tian leans against the sink, a worn-down thing overlooking the garden, the taps rusted. He’s freshly showered and looks unfairly presentable in dark jeans, and a festive Fairisle jumper with a roll neck, which doesn’t succeed in making him look as ridiculous as it should.</p><p>Guan Shan says, ‘This kitchen is gonna have to be the priority.’</p><p>He Tian pulls his phone out from his jeans pocket. Swiping through something on the screen he asks, ‘How soon can your friends start?’</p><p>Guan Shan adds more cereal to the milk in his bowl and says, ‘That’s somethin’ I need to ask them.’</p><p>He Tian looks up at him, fingers going still. ‘You haven’t actually asked them, have you?’</p><p>‘Believe me, they’ll do it.’</p><p>He Tian looks at him for a moment longer, then shrugs, looking back down at his phone.</p><p>‘It’s gonna be a rush,’ says Guan Shan. ‘Most places want kitchen measurements months in advance. I dunno that you’ll get what you want in time for fittin’ it all. Especially this close to Christmas.’</p><p>‘I have most of what I need—my mother ordered it years ago. It’s been sitting in the barn.’ He points through the window looking out on the front of the house, and Guan Shan sees a dilapidated farm building he hadn’t seen at night set across from the driveway.</p><p>‘That’s gonna make this a lot easier.’</p><p>He Tian smiles. ‘The rest we can work through today. The work can start tomorrow. You should call your friends first, though.’</p><p>Guan Shan grimaces. ‘Actually, my phone’s dead. Have you got a charger I can borrow?’</p><p>‘In the living room. Help yourself. I’ll bring some tea through.’</p><p>Guan Shan nods his head in thanks and walks through the house with a new wave of uncertainty. Everything looks different in daylight. He glances briefly through the windows he passes, where the sky is a strange blue-grey and the garden is—</p><p>Guan Shan stops.</p><p>Snow.</p><p>Everything is smothered in snow.</p><p>Had it been like that last night? He was too tired to notice much of anything, too set on the strangeness of staying at a stranger’s house to notice the strangeness of the weather, too. It makes it impossible to assess the garden, and he can’t plant anything that isn’t already frost-resistant. He swears.</p><p>A problem for later.</p><p>He finds the phone charger in the living room against the wall, notices He Tian’s bed, neatly made, half-smothered by the scraggly hound curled on top of it. It looks at Guan Shan, yawns, jaw stretching wide to reveal a sharp set of teeth, then ignores him.</p><p>It takes a few minutes for his phone to switch on, and by then Guan Shan is impatient and biting at his thumbnail. He Tian deposits a cup of hot tea in his palm—already perfected with milk and two sugars, Guan Shan notices—when his phone screen glows.</p><p>‘Finally,’ he mutters.</p><p>He Tian smirks.</p><p>Notifications flash up urgently on the screen. Messages, missed calls, redundant Twitter and Facebook notifications that he ignores. He’s scrolling for Jian Yi’s number when his phone begins to vibrate in his hand and a number appears on the screen. It’s a Dublin number, but Guan Shan doesn’t recognise it.</p><p>‘Hello?’ he says.</p><p>‘Mo Guan Shan? It’s Jack. Where the fuck have you gotten yourself?’</p><p>Guan Shan bows his head. Fuck.</p><p>‘Jack, I’m sorry. I had some personal shite come up.’</p><p>‘You didn’t think to tell me yourself? You were meant to open this morning.’</p><p>‘I know, I—’</p><p>The phone is taken from his grasp.</p><p>Shocked, Guan Shan watches He Tian crouch down near the plug socket and put the phone to his ear.</p><p>‘Jack?’ he says. ‘It’s He Tian.’</p><p>There’s an exuberant sound on the other end of the line, loud enough that He Tian pulls the phone away from his ear before putting it back. He chuckles.</p><p>‘What’s the craic, Jack?’ There’s laughter on the other end of the line. Grinning, He Tian says, ‘How are the kids?’</p><p>The conversation continues like that for a few more minutes—kids, wife, inside jokes and names of people even Guan Shan has never heard his boss say before—before eventually He Tian hangs up and deposits the phone back into Guan Shan’s hand. He’s still smiling from the phone call, a display of genuine warmth, but Guan Shan knows the look is a smug one, too.</p><p>‘You’re covered,’ he says. ‘He understands.’</p><p>Guan Shan glares at him. ‘How? You didn’t mention my name once.’</p><p>‘Trust me—it’s handled.’</p><p>‘I don’t appreciate you doin’ that. I can handle my own shite.’</p><p>‘Can you?’</p><p>‘What’s that supposed to mean?’</p><p>‘Your circumstances have <em>significantly </em>deteriorated in the forty-eight hours that I’ve known you.’</p><p>‘You’re puttin’ yourself in the middle of this? Of my life? Nice. That’s really nice.’</p><p>‘That isn’t what I meant.’</p><p>‘Yeah, well. You don’t know me. But I’ll let you in on something, yeah? This is my life. This is what it’s like. It hasn’t changed ‘cause you’re in it. It hasn’t gotten worse—and it definitely hasn’t gotten better just ‘cause you threw some money at me. Alright?’</p><p>‘Noted.’</p><p>‘Grand.’</p><p>Guan Shan glares at him with enough intensity that he nearly misses when his phone starts ringing again. Jian Yi. There’s enough charge that Guan Shan unplugs his phone and walks over to the other side of the living room before he can risk He Tian making a grab for it again like it’s his right—or his phone.</p><p>‘Jian Yi, hey—’</p><p>‘Oh, thank <em>fuck. </em>I thought you’d gone and gotten yourself murdered!’</p><p>Guan Shan rolls his eyes. ‘Clearly not.’</p><p>‘Where the fuck are you? Not She Li’s, I hope to god—’</p><p>‘No, I’m not there. Listen, we should talk. I’ve got some work for the two of youse if you’d be interested.’</p><p>‘Are you trying to change the subject?’</p><p>‘Not really. I do have work for you. Well-paid.’ He glances over his shoulder at He Tian, who is scratching his dog’s head with absent fondness, listening in on the conversation with unselfconscious attentiveness. It would be hard for him not to listen. ‘Heating, electricity, plumbing. Mostly decorating.’</p><p>‘I’m listening.’</p><p>‘Three weeks and sixteen grand each.’</p><p>‘Mother of god,’ Jian Yi swears. ‘Who the fuck are you working for, the Kinahans?’</p><p>Guan Shan snorts. He picks at a piece of chipped wood on the window ledge.</p><p>‘You’re gonna be fixin’ central heatin’ and fittin’ a kitchen—not smuggling coke into Spain.’</p><p>‘It’s a slippery slope, Mo Guan Shan.’</p><p>Guan Shan smiles despite himself. He looks over again and sees that He Tian is watching him. His gaze makes Guan Shan self-aware of his smile, his voice, how he’s holding the phone. He isn’t sure how to position his limbs and isn’t sure why the fuck it matters.</p><p>He turns away and tries to pretend that He Tian isn’t watching him, knowing full well he is.</p><p>‘Are you in or out? Or have youse got yourselves a job already?’</p><p>‘Not one that’s paying sixteen grand. Is that confirmed?’</p><p>‘Half before, half after.’</p><p>‘Well, even if I don’t get the after, eight grand is good enough for me before Christmas.’</p><p>‘Have you got a third seat in the van?’ Guan Shan asks. ‘Dunno what the fuck I’m gonna do about my car for a while…’</p><p>‘Of course,’ Jian Yi says. ‘Are you thinking of staying here?’</p><p>‘If I can. If it’s alright with the both—’</p><p>‘Of course. However long you want.’</p><p>Guan Shan grimaces at the gesture. It’s kinder than he deserves. He’ll pay towards rent and do the cooking, but he knows it’s a short-term fix, a temporary plaster on a fucking hemorrhage. Zhengxi probably won’t be too happy about it.</p><p>‘Just until I sort this fuckin’ mess out with She Li,’ he says. ‘I should start lookin’ for a place.’</p><p>‘We’re three weeks ‘til Christmas, Guan Shan. You’re not looking for a place <em>now.</em>’</p><p>Guan Shan doesn’t dwell on it. ‘Alright, then. I’ll see you later, will I? Just got some more work things to figure out.’</p><p>‘Alright, Red. <em>Slán.’</em></p><p> </p><p>///</p><p> </p><p>They draw up a contract over more tea with clauses and amendments that Guan Shan doesn’t understand and only half-trusts. He Tian gives a brief tour of the house, gauzy winter daylight seeping through dust-clouded rooms. The upstairs is unbearably cold, and He Tian tells Guan Shan that he has a roofer coming in the next couple of days to pad out the insulation and check for cracks in the ceiling. Guan Shan’s shower is cold and he’s grateful for yesterday’s clothes and the clean set of skiing thermals He Tian gives him to wear underneath.</p><p>They leave at noon for the town; Guan Shan orders tools for next-day collection at the nearest Woodies and another local hardware store. They’ll start work first thing; Jian Yi and Zhengxi won’t need much in the way of an induction and He Tian’s plans are pre-written and exact; he knows the paint colour for each wall, the varnish for the beams, the tiling for the the bathrooms. The infrastructure is there well enough—there’s no major reconstruction to be done.</p><p>‘I want to keep the integrity of the place,’ He Tian tells him over lunch. They eat a café near the canal, where Guan Shan orders a kimchi and avocado panini and a bitter waterside breeze rushes through the doors with each opening.</p><p>Between the forest and He Tian’s home, he feels as if he hasn’t been warm for a week.</p><p>‘Integrity, yeah?’ Guan Shan asks. ‘Are you sure the place is gonna stand on its own for another decade?’</p><p>‘It’s stood for a couple of centuries. I think it’ll last.’</p><p>Guan Shan assesses the man while he pulls a cigarette packet from the pocket of his coat, then places it neatly beside his bowl of soup. On top, he places his lighter.</p><p>‘Y’know,’ says Guan Shan. ‘You haven’t really told me what you <em>do.’</em></p><p>‘What do you mean?’</p><p>‘Your job. Your money.’ Guan Shan gestures around the busy restaurant. ‘You’re not workin’.’</p><p>‘It’s a Sunday.’</p><p>‘He Tian.’</p><p>‘Mo Guan Shan.’</p><p>Guan Shan leans back. ‘You know what I mean.’</p><p>‘Do you need to know where I get my money so long as I give you yours?’</p><p>‘That makes me feel even more uneasy about this whole fuckin’ thing.’</p><p>‘Don’t fret,’ says He Tian, plucking a cigarette from the pack. He gets up from his chair and tugs on his coat. ‘You do your job, and I’ll do mine.’</p><p>‘He Tian—’</p><p>‘Finish your lunch. I won’t be long.’</p><p>Another gust of cold air, and Guan Shan is left alone. He watches He Tian disappear through the front door, along the café’s windowed walls. From the table, he can see He Tian standing beside the canal while he lights a cigarette and pulls out his phone from his pocket. He puts it to his ear, inhales, exhales. His cigarette flares a spot of red against a colourless sky. There are disused tables outside, and a cluster of pigeons pick at dropped crumbs and the remnants of someone’s breakfast. A magpie worries at some small offering of carrion between the canal cleats.</p><p>Guan Shan tries to watch He Tian’s mouth while he talks, wondering if he’s speaking English, Mandarin, or Cantonese. Probably, he knows even more. Guan Shan picks at his kimchi toastie and tries not to feel remarkably inferior, which is an easy thing to feel these days, especially when he’s in someone’s pocket and isn’t quite sure how he’s gotten there.</p><p>Guan Shan kicks one foot with the other. He knows how he’s gotten there: he picked up the phone and made a call and didn’t say no.</p><p>He’s not naive enough to pretend like he doesn’t have a part to play in this.</p><p>With a touch of self-loathing stinging the back of his throat like reflux, he finishes the rest of his sandwich. There’s no point to prove here, but he feels like he’s proving one anyway. When He Tian comes back in, the small of cigarettes is discomfiting and He Tian offers an apologetic smile.</p><p>‘A New Year’s resolution of mine—quitting.’</p><p>‘How many years have you been makin’ that one?’</p><p>‘Well, I started smoking when I was thirteen, so a while.’</p><p>‘Oh, so, like—twenty years?’</p><p>He Tian grins. ‘You think I’m in my thirties? Honestly?’</p><p>‘No—obviously not. You’re my age, aren’t you?’</p><p>He Tian affects a particular accent and says, ‘Oh, so, like—eighteen?’</p><p>Guan Shan laughs despite himself. The impression is a good one; had someone else said it—someone like She Li—it would have been a mockery. Instead, Guan Shan feels the warmth of a shared joke. It’s strange. He pushes his plate away. He Tian soaks up some soup with a piece of bread and chews thoughtfully.</p><p>‘I’ll have you at your friend’s by six. Near St Anne’s, isn’t it?’</p><p>Guan Shan pauses. ‘I don’t think I told you that.’</p><p>‘I’m sure you did. Is six okay?’</p><p>The subject change is a smooth one, pressed over like a crease in a bed sheet, but it’s not perfect. Guan Shan has no recollection of telling him Jian Yi’s address. He’ll let it sit for a moment, but not for long.</p><p>For now Guan Shan says, ‘That’s hours away. What’s between now and then?’</p><p>‘I need to buy a bed.’</p><p>Guan Shan’s eyebrows raise. ‘Pretty sure I don’t need to be involved in that.’</p><p>‘I’d like your input. Plus I have just bought you lunch.’</p><p>‘We haven’t paid. You haven’t bought shit.’</p><p>‘Well, I let you stay at mine last night. And I gave you breakfast.’</p><p>‘Cornflakes aren’t <em>breakfast.</em>’</p><p>‘Maybe you’re right on that one. I’ll improve it for next time.’</p><p>‘Next time?’</p><p>‘But I did let you stay.’</p><p>Feeling something like whiplash, Guan Shan breathes sharply out his nose.</p><p>‘I didn’t have much of a choice,’ he says. ‘Couldn’t walk back to St Anne’s, could I?’</p><p>‘Technically—’</p><p>‘Fuck you.’</p><p>‘Help me buy a bed first?’</p><p>Guan Shan gets to his feet. He grabs his jacket and rifles for stray euros in any of his available pockets. He knows he’s going to come up empty but he makes a show of it all the same, and fiery anger forces him to try. He Tian leans across the table, and puts a hand out, palm up, a situational gesture.</p><p>‘I’m sorry,’ he says. ‘That was inappropriate of me, sorry.’</p><p>‘If this is gonna become a runnin’ thing, then I’m out. I don’t care how much you pay me. I’m not up for bein’ around someone who makes me feel like that. I’ve done it enough.’</p><p>He Tian keeps his palm out. Solemnly he says, ‘It won’t. I’m sorry. I meant what I said—this isn’t about sex. I have a crude sense of humour that not everyone appreciates.’</p><p>‘I don’t.’</p><p>‘Yes, I’m beginning to realise that.’ He Tian smiles strangely. ‘What kind of humour <em>do </em>you appreciate, Mo Guan Shan?’</p><p>Guan Shan doesn’t say anything for a moment. Then, feeling petty, he replies, ‘Maybe you should say somethin’ that’s actually funny and you’ll find out, won’t you?’</p><p>He Tian keeps smiling. ‘Maybe I will.’</p><p> </p><p>///</p><p> </p><p>They find him a frame from a reclaimed wood store, full of cottage-style stools and mirrors and roof beams. He Tian says he’ll varnish it when he gets it home, and he picks up a new mattress from a bespoke furniture store where there are only single units of each piece and no prices.</p><p>‘I’ll do the guest rooms later,’ says He Tian. ‘I need the foundations laid first.’</p><p>Guan Shan waits for some sexual joke innuendo to follow, but it doesn’t. He Tian flicks on the indicator and follows the GPS on his car’s display system.</p><p>The car is eerily silent, dipping only over potholes, moving surely over slips of drain water that has started to harden to ice as the air grows cold.</p><p>He Tian drives with no music on through Dublin’s streets, but his car is linked to Spotify and Guan Shan catches glimpses of musicians he doesn’t recognise but will listen to later—Chase Atlantic, YUNGLBUD, Matt Maeson. There are a few Chinese artists, too, which Guan Shan thinks is strange to see as he swipes through the screen. He hasn’t seen his language on someone else’s personal effects for a while. Jian Yi and Zhengxi don’t speak it, and She Li refuses to.</p><p>They pull up outside the flat at some point after six, and Guan Shan knows he’ll make it to Aldi before closing if he’s quick.</p><p>‘So this is you?’ He Tian asks, peering up through the windshield. ‘Nice to have a park so close.’</p><p>‘You live in the middle of fuckin’ nowhere. I think you win the award for green space, you culchie.’</p><p>The insult makes He Tian snort, mildly humoured and already used to Guan Shan’s rougher edges, but he doesn’t reply.</p><p>The engine switches off, and Guan Shan should get out now. He should thank him for the day—for lunch, for the place to stay.</p><p>Instead he asks, ‘Why’d you choose a place like that? You said you’re always in town. Why live in a place like that?’</p><p>He Tian tucks his chin down slightly. ‘For a very terrible reason, I suppose: Memory.’</p><p>‘Memory?’ Guan Shan echoes, not understanding.</p><p>‘I had good memories there. With my mother, my brother. On the very odd and rare occasion, with my father.’</p><p>‘So you stay there to keep them alive.’</p><p>‘Feeding them like nightmares?’ He Tian jokes dryly.</p><p>‘Or dreams,’ replies Guan Shan.</p><p>‘I admire your optimism, Mo Guan Shan.’</p><p>His response evades any particular answer. He uses Guan Shan’s full name for emphasis, which feels like he’s trying to make a joke, but when Guan Shan pulls back to look at him, he sees that He Tian’s glittering eyes are full of self-mockery. There’s something else, too.</p><p>Guan Shan replies in kind: ‘You don’t come across like a pessimist.’</p><p>‘Not if I can help it, that’s for sure.’</p><p>Guan Shan shakes his head. He bites at a hangnail on his thumb. His right leg is shaking, and probably has been for some time. He thinks about the box in He Tian’s spare room. <em>He Cheng. </em>Brother or father? Are they alive still? What about his mother? Guan Shan tries to picture what the story is behind a rich man who haunts a rundown farmhouse like a fucking ghost.</p><p>‘I can’t figure you out,’ Guan Shan says. ‘You can’t like bein’ lonely like that.’</p><p>‘Living on my own doesn’t make me lonely, and vice versa. You can attest to that.’ He Tian points a finger. ‘And don’t give me that look. I realise we’ve known each other a very short space of time but I think you know exactly what I mean. You wouldn’t have called me last night if you didn’t.’</p><p>Guan Shan narrows his eyes. ‘I’m beginnin’ to regret my decision.’</p><p>‘Don’t. I’m glad you did. I think you are, too.’</p><p>Guan Shan lets out an irritable sigh. It’s frustrating being around people who like to assume they know what he’s thinking or feeling—even more when they’re right.</p><p>He takes a moment to consider how the next three weeks are going to go. He’s grateful he’ll have work to set his mind on, Zhengxi and Jian Yi a welcome backdrop to the strange relationship Guan Shan has already developed with his new customer. Employer. Whatever the fuck he is.</p><p>Tonight he’ll make dinner and try to offset another sleepless night before they start on the house tomorrow and Guan Shan waits for the snow to melt. He Tian will go back to his empty home and his dog and—</p><p>Fuck.</p><p>‘Look, d’you wanna come in? I was gonna make pasta. You can meet the two of ‘em before they show up at your gaff tomorrow.’</p><p>He Tian’s eyes flick between the apartment building and Guan Shan’s face.</p><p>‘You’re inviting me to dinner.’</p><p>‘You don’t need to make it sound so fuckin’ formal,’ Guan Shan gripes. ‘I’m not bringin’ you home to meet my mother.’</p><p>‘They’re your friends, though.’</p><p>‘Don’t make this weird—they’re gonna be workin’ for you tomorrow. You can say no.’</p><p>He Tian pauses. ‘Pasta, was it?’</p><p>Guan Shan rolls his eyes. ‘I need to go to Aldi first.’</p><p>‘Conveniently, I have a car.’</p><p>Guan Shan glances at the sky. Clouded over, but he can see the faint sheen of moonlight behind a cloud, passing briskly.</p><p>‘Let’s walk,’ he says. ‘If that’s alright with you.’</p><p>He Tian is looking at him strangely. He could remark on a number of things: the extra time, the cold, the unnecessary effort. He says nothing, leans past Guan Shan to get a pack of chewing gum from the glove compartment while Guan Shan holds his breath, just like he’d reached to shut the door last night, and glances in his wing mirror before opening the car door.</p><p>‘Wait,’ Guan Shan says. ‘You could get a ticket if you park here.’</p><p>‘I’ll manage,’ He Tian says, smiling wryly while he climbs out the car. ‘But the concern is sweet.’</p><p> </p><p>///</p><p> </p><p>Jian Yi tugs him out of the kitchen while the pasta boils away and the ragu is set to a low simmer. They leave Zhengxi to make the salad and He Tian to make sure the frozen garlic bread doesn’t burn in the oven.</p><p>‘So this is the guy?’ Jian Yi asks, pulling him into the bathroom and shutting the door behind them.</p><p>Guan Shan, sensing something of an intervention, nods. He crosses his arms over his chest.</p><p>‘Yeah. He’s…’</p><p>‘There are a lot of words you could use right now,’ says Jian Yi, ‘but it tells me more that you say none of them.’ Jian Yi inclines his head. ‘Not like you like to use many at the best of times.’</p><p>Guan Shan swallows a sigh. ‘Maybe I shouldn’t stay here if you’re gonna get shitty about where I go.’</p><p>‘You don’t have the best track record of keeping yourself safe, Mo Guan Shan.’</p><p>‘I’m alive, aren’t I?’</p><p>Jian Yi’s look is all pity. <em>Those are two very different things</em>, it says. Guan Shan is used to these conversations: nagging concern concealed by gossipy chatter. Jian Yi isn’t like his partner, who often knows his place and likes to think Guan Shan will learn from his mistakes. Jian Yi spends too much time worrying about how he can prevent them from happening in the first place.</p><p>‘He’s fine,’ Guan Shan says in the end, not knowing exactly what <em>fine </em>means. ‘You’ve known him for five minutes.’</p><p>‘You’ve known him two days.’ Jian Yi lifts both brows. ‘Are <em>you </em>telling <em>me </em>not to judge someone on first impressions?’</p><p>‘Don’t start—’</p><p>‘You’ve brought a ten-foot-tall Hongkonger home for dinner.’</p><p>‘Don’t be an eejit. He’s six-two.’</p><p>Jian Yi greyish eyes glitter. ‘Noticed, did you?’</p><p>‘Fuck off.’</p><p>‘Where the fuck did you <em>find—</em>’</p><p>‘Keep your voice down,’ Guan Shan hisses.</p><p>Jian Yi snickers, but steps forward and obligingly lowers his voice. ‘Where did you <em>find </em>him, Guan Shan? He’s familiar, but I don’t know why. Didn’t take you for a rugger bugger fucker.’</p><p>Guan Shan grimaces. ‘He’s rich, not white. And we didn’t fuck.’</p><p>Jian Yi’s look turns knowing and smug. ‘But you’re hoping to.’</p><p>‘I’m hopin’ to fix his shitter of a house up and take my cut.’</p><p>‘And <em>then</em> fuck him.’</p><p>‘Would you stop fuckin’—’</p><p>‘Alright, alright,’ Jian Yi says.</p><p>‘Not everyone thinks about that shite all the time.’</p><p>Jian Yi sighs. He steps back, closes down the toilet lid and sits himself down. He gives a loose-shoulder shrug and lets his hands hang between his knees. His expression takes on a different look. Guan Shan braces himself.</p><p>‘I guess after everything with She Li it’s the last thing anyone would want to think about.’</p><p>Guan Shan shakes his head. ‘Thanks for makin’ me think about it anyway.’</p><p>He could pretend that his relationship with She Li doesn’t affect him, but he’s never been particularly good at hiding things like that, and it would probably show itself anyway, like the gold glue-paint on a <em>kintsugi </em>ceramic, oozing between the broken cracks. The thought is a dramatic one—he isn’t fucking <em>broken</em>, least of all by someone like She Li. But he wouldn’t refrain from using a word like <em>scarred </em>or <em>bruised.</em></p><p>He’s saved from a continuation of this trainwreck of a conversation when there’s a knock on the bathroom door.</p><p>Jian Yi and Guan Shan look at each other. Through the wood comes Zhengxi’s voice.</p><p>‘Do the two of youse need more toilet roll to wipe each other’s arses in there?’</p><p>Guan Shan sighs and opens the door. Zhengxi looks unimpressed. He Tian must still be in the kitchen—on his own. Guan Shan feels a stab of guilt: he’s not being a very good host, leaving him alone at a stranger’s place—not that He Tian gives off the impression of someone who minds whether he’s surrounded by others or not.</p><p>
  <em>Living on my own doesn’t make me lonely, and vice versa. </em>
</p><p>He Tian was right—Guan Shan knows exactly what he’d meant. Guan Shan seems lonely enough for the two of them even living with others. Company doesn’t make a difference, and neither does a change of scenery.</p><p>Guan Shan brushes past Zhengxi and towards the kitchen, and he wonders if He Tian will realise that when the house is finished. It might look prettier, but it won’t change his memory, and he’ll still be alone.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Please remember to <b>kudos, comment, or check out more ways of <a href="http://agapaic.tumblr.com">supporting me on Tumblr</a> if you enjoy my work!</b></p><p>Thank you so much for reading and stay safe! Happy Holidays!</p></blockquote></div></div>
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